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Darwinius exaggeratus, part 2 . . .

Posted on May 29th, 2009 by earleholland

In the future, scientists and science junkies alike will look back at the Darwinius discovery and recognize its place in contemporary science history. But their categorization isn’t likely to match the hopes and plans held by the cohort that stage-managed its unveiling last week.

Already, commentators are drawing comparisons between this fossil find and the cold fusion debacle of the late 1980s. [See our first take on this episode here.]

X-ray of Darwinius masillae fossil And while there is no question that the amount of coverage this ancient creature received was huge, the number of follow-up stories taking issue with how the news was released, and how accurate the researchers’ claims actually were, is large as well. Couple that with the hyperbole reeking from the promos touting Monday night’s airing of “The Link,” the History Channel documentary extolling the saga of “Ida,” as the fossil has been nicknamed.

The Darwinius authors have proclaimed that their coordinated publicity campaign, replete with the press conference at the American Museum of Natural History, a new book, a website and the TV show, were grand successes in efforts to increase the public’s interest in science.

Jorn Hurum, a co-author of the PLoS paper on Darwinius, told reporters, “This specimen is like finding the Lost Ark for archeologists.” And David Attenborough, the BBC’s famed naturalist, proclaimed, “The link they would have said up to now is missing - well it’s no longer missing.”

But now that most Americans have seen the images of the scraggly remains of this ancient creature, what they’re hearing now is how the claims about its importance were severely overblown, and the interest that originated from the announcement is shifting towards skepticism. Sadly, that growing disbelief isn’t limited to this episode alone, or even to paleontology. It is seeping into the public’s perception of what science is, and how trustworthy scientists are.

Consider the following:

Prior to the press conference, only a handful of select reporters got an advance look at the scientific paper, and they were sworn to secrecy until the unveiling. Normally, scientific journals will share advance copies of such papers with science writers who will have enough time to accurately report the story, not just parrot back statements offered at a press briefing. This insures input from experts in the field who aren’t a party to the research, providing balance to grand claims.

But in this case, the journal, PLoS One, didn’t release the paper in advance. The behind-the-scenes leaking of the paper to some select journalists was handled by Atlantic Productions, the company that had produced the documentary for the History Channel.

PLoS One’s managing editor, Peter Binfield, said in an email that the media “did not have access to the final paper,” adding that he “had no idea what version they [the reporters] did look at, but clearly it could have been any of the prior versions that the authors would have had access to.”

What’s strange about this is that most journals strictly warn authors about releasing pre-published papers to the media – although PLoS apparently has no such restriction – and researchers are universally skittish about leaking such material, for fear it might jeopardize its publication.

What seems clear is that an early version of the journal paper was handed off to Atlantic Productions by someone on the research team, contrary to typical behavior among scientists, to help facilitate the media blitz. In a later email, Binfield concurred that the most obvious conclusion is that an author leaked the paper.

Then consider “The Link,” the documentary that aired for two hours on Monday night. While reviewers reported that it garnered 2 million viewers – a healthy showing for History Channel programs – that viewership is far less than the normal viewership of PBS’ “NOVA,” the dean of television science programming.

What is, perhaps, most distressing was the overbilling of the program. Promos touted it, comparing it to other milestones in history, including the attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President John Kennedy, and the Apollo program’s landing on the moon. The blustering was, quite frankly, far beyond the pale:

“A Global Event:” “Witness the most important find in 47 million years,” and “This changes everything.”

Such exaggeration doesn’t help promote science. It hurts it! Surprisingly, there were no comparisons to earlier scientific discoveries.

PLoS One logo But perhaps the most egregious act in this episode is hidden in the small type on the first page of journal article. It reads:

“Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.”

PLoS’ policy on this reads:

“A competing interest for a scholarly journal is anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, review, or publication of research findings, or of articles that comment on or review research findings. Competing interests can be financial, professional, or personal; hidden or declared; actual or perceived.

“Competing interests can be held by authors, their employer (whether academic institution, commercial company, or other), sponsors of the work, reviewers, and editors. They can arise in a relationship with an organization or another person.”

It also says:

“If authors know that organizations or institutions that have provided support for the work or for authors’ salaries have received any grants from other institutions or companies that have been involved or have an interest in the work described, such information should be declared.”

That seems pretty clear. The affiliation with the television documentary, royalties from book sales, even the indirect benefit that Hurum expressed to one reporter that increased visibility for this work would likely lead to support for future efforts – amounts to a probable conflict of interests on the authors’ part, or at the very least, the perception of one.

It warranted disclosure and they didn’t.

Even assuming the most altruistic motives for all concerned with this, they should have known better. The potential damage to research that exaggerated claims can bring threatens all of science, and anyone looking at the story of Darwinius as a case study in science communications should really think again.__Earle Holland

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Darwinius exaggeratus . . .

Posted on May 21st, 2009 by earleholland

As it usually happens in anthropology, the actual scientific importance of the fossil “find” announced earlier this week won’t be decided until years from now. But that fundamental unknown didn’t stop the identification of Darwinius masillae from being the science story of the week, or perhaps the month.

Darsinius masillae fossil Fueled by a public relations campaign worthy of the next Star Wars movie, a sextet of researchers on Tuesday announced a true rarity in paleontology – a skeleton that they said was “the most complete fossil primate ever found.” Their lengthy paper in the journal PLoS One, an online offering from the Public Library of Science, explained that the fossil clearly showed the animal’s skeleton, an outline of its body and remnants of its last meal.

Discovered in 1983, divided between two private collectors and then sold over the years, the recent merging of the two halves allowed the research team to place the creature where it seems to belong on our species’ family tree. More accurately, it’s more an ancestor of tree-living, rain-forest primates than of the anthropoids that eventually walked across the prehistoric savannahs.

But that distinction was routinely lost in many of the abbreviated news stories touting the discovery. A Google News search produced more than 700 versions of stories a couple of days after the announcement, and Google itself joined the celebration offering its own Google logo depicting the fossil on its web search page for a day. Google logo on day of press conference

As interesting as fossil finds are to science geeks – and to much of the public as well – what sets this episode apart from the norm is the extent of machinations involved to hype this discovery before the public.

And also, there’s the underlying question of whether such publicity-mongering is good or bad for science?

The research team partnered with the History Channel, the A&E Network, an independent filmmaker, ABC News and others to tout the discovery at a press conference held at the American Museum of Natural History, as well as to hawk an upcoming film and book about the fossil find. Subsequent stories claimed the discovery as the “missing link” and one of the “most important finds in 47 million years,” the estimated age of the fossil.

A New York Times story reported that at Tuesday’s press conference, one researcher was asked about all the hoopla surrounding this announcement. His response:

“Any pop band is doing the same thing. Any athlete is doing the same thing. We have to start thinking the same way in science,” he argued.

No we don’t!

Rock music and athletics are poor models for scientists to emulate when thinking about how to raise public interest. Advocates of that approach forget the simple truth that the public recognizes the appeal in those realms is emotional, and that fans willingly embrace the sensationalism that accompanies them. It’s all part of the game.

But science should be different. The public needs to trust that scientists, when announcing discoveries, are basing their exuberance on the significance of their finds, both to science and to society. Raising rabid interest in announcements that are linked to book sales or TV viewership shouldn’t be part of their job.

The rush of cheerleading stories has died down following the press conference and coverage now focuses more on evaluating how important this research really is. That’s how it should be.

Discussion now centers on how significant the find actually is. Clark Spencer Larsen, head of anthropology at Ohio State and once a student in a graduate course given by one of the Darwinius discoverers said simply, “I think it is being overly hyped.”

Scott McGraw, a colleague in the same department, said,” The exciting element of this story is the completeness and preservation of the new specimen, not the information content of the fossil itself. By and large, the fossil offers little new information . . . So it is – at best – an old and distant cousin – but not a direct ancestor [to humans].”

Assuming that’s a fair statement, this episode seems more inclined towards a publicity stunt than it is an effort at the public understanding of this science.

John Noble Wilford, science writer at the New York Times and probably the most respected American journalist covering archaeology and paleontology, seems resigned about the whole affair. His story ran in Saturday’s issue of the Times, prior to the big Tuesday press conference but only after the Wall Street Journal had reported on the find.

He acknowledged that in fields like archeology and paleontology, where government support for research is scant, “promotion on a modest scale has long been important” for researchers to continue their work.

But, he said, “This exceeded just about anything I had come across in recent years. It was so blatant, and some of the promoters were using strong-armed tactics in negotiations.

“It seems that’s just part of getting science to the public in our modern media age.”

His recognizing that more researchers today seem willing to hype their science doesn’t mean that he supports the practice. But his noting that these episodes are becoming more frequent is a serious warning to all who do research.

Once lost, the public’s trust in science may be hard to regain.__Earle Holland

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Flashbacks aren’t all bad . . .

Posted on May 13th, 2009 by earleholland

Harvey Friedman in 1967 a 19-year-old professor at Stanford University. Image from Life magazine.

I traveled back in time this week – just over 25 years and one month, to be precise.

Reading Tuesday’s story in the Columbus Dispatch did it, sent me reeling into a place I usually try to avoid. The story announced an international conference, set at Ohio State, that would honor the career of mathematician Harvey Friedman.

For four days, the paper said, “mathematicians, professors, musicians, philosophers and scientists will discuss such subjects as absolute infinity, transducers, axiomatic theories of truth and empirical Platonism,” and Harvey will bask in it all.

Harvey Friedman, Ohio State math professor, 2000. When he arrived at Ohio State as a full professor in math in 1977, he already had gained fame a decade earlier as the country’s youngest professor, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, because of his appointment at Stanford. Luring him here had been a real coup.

My phone rang one day early in 1984. Jack Renirie, the chief public information officer for the National Science Foundation was calling to ask a favor. NSF had selected Friedman to receive the agency’s Alan T. Waterman Award, one of its highest honors and given to rising stars in research who were younger than 35. While drafting a news release for the award, one of his staffers had struck out in trying to understand the research Harvey was doing. Would I take a crack at it, he asked.

I hadn’t met Friedman at the time but I knew he was a year younger than me and was already a world-renowned scholar. And mathematics and I had seldom been friends in the past. (Had that not been so, I might have succeeded as a chemical engineer rather than as a science writer.)

I agreed to Renirie’s request and scheduled an afternoon interview a day or so later. Harvey was gracious and energetic and, after a bit of small talk to warm up, the interview started.

For science writers beginning discussions with researchers, this is the crux moment. To understand the studies at issue, the researcher and writer usually begin a somewhat disjointed dance as they seek common ground, a baseline on which to build the conversation. In some cases, it is seamless and takes seconds.

In my case with Harvey, it was endless. I was seeking a reasonable explanation of what his work entailed – something that non-scholars could vaguely understand and defeat their often strong phobias against math.

He would begin with a point and I would have to stop him for translation and clarification. I would offer an interpretation of what I thought he had said and he’d grade my answer as wrong, leaving me a failure at math once again.

Like two lousy ping pong players, he’d serve and I’d miss; I’d serve and he’d miss. We never seemed to get a volley going.

After a fruitless hour or so, we agreed to a time out, planning to resume the match the next afternoon. But sadly, we fared no better in that second session than the first. As his patience clearly wore thin, exasperation set in and he said:

“Earle, I don’t get it. You’re a smart guy. This is something that any first-year grad student in mathematics understands. Why don’t you?”

“Harvey,” I explained, “The average American newspaper is written for a fifth-grade reader. They’re not graduate students!”

And that was the moment, I thought, the instant when the math whiz would grasp the magnitude of the void between his mind and dullards like me. That would bridge the chasm between us . . . not!

“Well what can we do to get the readership levels higher?” he asked, and my heart hit the floor.

Eventually, I was able to write the release, share it with NSF, and Harvey’s award got the media coverage it deserved. But there was more writing “around” the math in that release than there was writing “about” math, and we’re probably the worse for it in some way.

I’ve surely done more than a thousand interviews since then, probably many more, but the dialogue with Harvey always stands out as a reminder of the challenges of science communications.

There is a vast gap between the interests of scientists and those of the rest of us. And that distance grows exponentially as new discoveries are made. Our dwindling public attention span has amplified the problem, as has the deluge of messages we receive daily.

True communication between scholar and citizen is tougher now than ever before.

But the rewards are great. Researchers should make the effort to reach down and give the rest of us a hand up, so that we can understand, if only slightly, the wonders of the world they explore.

And we, the public, need to make the effort to learn some of the stuff that, at first glance, may seem too hard.__Earle Holland

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The telephone call . . .

Posted on May 1st, 2009 by earleholland

The telephone call in the middle of the afternoon was, frankly, a bit unnerving.

It was almost like when your first-borne asks about sex. Only with the sex question, most of us who are parents know how to gauge our answer, to duck and weave and estimate the right amount of information for that given moment.

Telephone ringing A somewhat hesitant woman’s voice asked simply, “I’m interested in getting started in research — can you tell me how to begin?”

As a science writer for more than 35 years, I clearly understand research in dozens of fields, having talked to countless experts and scientists about their life’s work. I can offer up a decent basic understanding of the human immune response, of tectonic drift, of quasars and quarks, and a healthy dose of anthropology. I know the scientific method and the idiosyncracies of the culture of science, and consider myself skilled in explaining research to the public.

But with that question, where does one begin? What field of research was she interested in, I asked.

“I haven’t really decided on that yet,” she answered.

Are you a student, I inquired hopefully? “No. I’m just interested in getting into research – how can I do that?”

I apologized to her for stammering a bit as I struggled for a starting point for the discussion. She seemed sincere, though immeasurably naïve. Her question, I explained, was sort of like asking how do you play the piano, or parachute from airplanes, or do brain surgery. Any explanation requires a common starting point and we, apparently, had none.

I explained that researchers are usually scientists or scholars who have studied, won academic degrees in specific fields, and have gone on to investigate fundamental questions that interest them. Some questions, I said, require more than a lifetime to answer – if then.

We chatted for a bit more. I suggested that, as a start, she pick a field that interested her, and a school where she could become versed in the topic. She could grow from there.

She was appreciative, or sounded so, thanked me and hung up. And after a bit of honest consternation, I admit, I recounted it to colleagues and we all laughed. But that episode hasn’t faded. It just hangs there in memory as a reminder of the void between science and the public.

Her’s was an honest call and question, and it deserved a decent answer. But a valid response required a shared understanding and she simply didn’t have it.

Teaching science Those who do science, as well as those of us watching from the periphery, often worry about the public’s inability to grasp science policy issues – stem cells, climate change, genetically modified organisms, evolution, and on and on and on. We throw up our collective hands and wail in wonder at the public’s preference for the simple over the complex, the pseudo-science over real science.

Surely, the citizenry has an obligation to invest the energy to learn enough about the complexity of the world, and science in specifics, if they are to be an informed electorate.

But we are also obliged to lend a hand to those who express interest, but who are sadly uninformed. Otherwise, how can there be positive change.

I hope the caller felt that was what I did.__Earle Holland

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A WWAIL of a Week . . .

Posted on April 26th, 2009 by earleholland

Last week wasn’t that good for animal rights activists. And that’s ironic since it was designated nationally as WWAIL –World Week for Animals In Laboratories – a time annually when people opposed to the use of animals in research are most vocal.

Two California activists, Lindy Greene and Kevin Olliff, were arrested Monday on felony charges in Santa Monica, CA in connection with alleged actions they took against UCLA researchers, despite a court injunction issued against their interference. Greene’s arrest is significant since she served as a so-called “press officer” for the Animal Liberation Front, an organization labeled by the FBI as domestic terrorists.
The acting director of the National Institutes of Health, Raynard S. Kington, went on record last week with an official NIH statement“deploring” terrorism against scientists involved in research using animals. Such statements of research from the NIH have been infrequent in the past and this might signal a tougher stance on the part of the federal agency most supportive of this kind of science.
And the FBI also added to its famed “Most Wanted Terrorists” list the name of Daniel Andreas San Diego, a fugitive for the last six years who is suspected of at least two bombings of biotechnology firms in the San Francisco area. That list also includes Osamabin Laden.
A protest demonstration at UCLA by activists objecting animal research, attracted only 40 people but a counter-demonstration across the street backing the scientists being attacked drew more than 400 supporters. The 10-to-1 ratio of supporters to opponents was reported widely by the national news media.

Local animal rights demonstration in front of OSU's Wiseman Hall. On the campus of Ohio State University, which national animal rights groups have targeted for decades, a local group of activists staged their own rally in opposition to ongoing research projects. On a day when 95,000 people jammed into the university’s stadium for the spring football game, the 15 or so protesters were noted by barely 20 passers-by.

As an apparent lead-up to WWAIL, PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, launched a national campaign aimed at one of Ohio State’s researchers, accusing him of doing fruitless studies on questions already understood, and killing hundreds of dogs in the process. The simplistic representations of what PETA said the research entailed were designed to infuriate the public and produce a flood of messages objecting to the work.

Sadly, all too many naïve people swallowed PETA’s statements without question and fired off cascading complaints. They either refused, or failed, to grasp the significance of studies designed to discover why some people – and dogs – are susceptible to a serious heart condition and why exercise has a protective/preventive effect against this malady. [Information about the study can be found here.]

Anti-PETA More distressing, however, is the fact that PETA’s opposition to this research was a weakly veiled effort at fund-raising, an effort designed to raise the anger of animal lovers and pick their pockets. PETA had orchestrated a mechanism on their website where folks could simply insert their email addresses and PETA would forward their objections to the university.

But perhaps coincidentally, some of those who used the email machinery received a solicitation message within a couple of days, citing the campaign against university research and asking for money. Accompanying the message was a picture of a sad canine in a small cage.

The dog, however, was not ours.

Organizations such as PETA, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and the Humane Society of the United States are on record as opposing all forms of research that might use animals, no matter how humanely. PETA’s chief, Ingrid Newkirk, has argued that no human life is worth the loss of a single animal.

No right-minded individual or organization condones animal abuse. We have laws against it and strict regulations to prevent it.

But if scientific progress is to be made now in the biomedical fields, we still need to use live animals in the process.

One day perhaps, science and technology will have reached a point where we have alternatives every bit as informing and valuable as animal use is today. On that day, scientists and animal activists can rejoice together.

But that time isn’t now, no matter what PETA and others may say otherwise.__Earle Holland

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Some weeks, better than others . . .

Posted on March 31st, 2009 by earleholland

Storm clouds looming

This past week hasn’t been a good one for climate scientists, or so it seems:

Along with giving mixed opinions on teaching evolution in its classrooms, the Texas State Board of Education approved standards that appear to question the validity of global warming. Their ruling both incorporated climate change into instruction and cast doubt on its severity and the role humans may play in it. The Board chair personally called humanity’s impact on climate change “a bunch of hooey,” news reports said.
The conservative think tank, The Cato Institute, ran full-page ads in both the Washington Post and the New York Times in recent days opposing U.S. President Barak Obama’s statement on climate change that “the science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.” The ad was endorsed by 115 supposed “experts,” 89 percent of which listed their graduate degrees.
Respected environmental reporter Andrew Revkin of the New York Times ran a weekend piece taking issue with some climate scientists’ use – or perhaps overuse – of the term “tipping point” in suggesting that global climate change had progressed to a stage where it might not be halted. Revkin, routinely the sane voice in American climate reporting, asserted that the data simply wasn’t there to prove that a tipping point had been reached.
And teasing on the cover of the respected New York Times Sunday Magazine was the face of renowned physicist and writer Freeman Dyson, the subject of a lengthy story inside expounding on his disbelief in the seriousness of climate change warnings. While not a climate scientist himself, Dyson’s doubts carry weight with the public because of his widespread popularity.

Taken together — or separately for that matter — a person hearing this news might understandably discount the concerns that many scientists have long raised about the planet’s climate and move on to less stressful topics.

We Americans like things simple — good or bad, night or day, hot or cold, black or white . . . you get the picture. We appreciate easy answers and clear, straight paths.

Intellectually, we know that life is infinitely complex. But in our guts, we long for only one of two choices. We believe or disbelieve, support or oppose, accept or deny. The region between two polar positions appears just too murky, so we avoid it when we can.

And the daily inundation of information we receive adds to that natural craving for simplicity.

Just let us pick between two sweets – don’t offer us the candy store!

Extreme climate change This is all bad for science, as it is inherently complicated. In that convoluted murky world is where all the best questions lie, and science is nothing if not never-ending questions. That’s why scientists have such trouble with issues of science policy and with communicating with the public.

By training, scientists want to neatly lay out the evidence leading from their research, complete with responses to arguments they predict opponents might offer, before offering their conclusions. In essence, they offer discourse.

The public simply doesn’t have the patience, sad though that may be.

The solution, some argue, lies in what people are willing to hear, to tailor one’s offerings to the interests of who is listening. Instead of addressing a vast controversy, target a specific argument.

Opponents of science – be they anti-evolutionists, animal rights’ advocates, or climate change deniers – all use similar strategies, dancing from argument to argument across a broad issue, tossing out claims without documentation, and painting a perception of truth. All too often, scientists are seen running to catch up in such arguments, burdened by the time required to provide their evidence.

All flavors of deniers strive for the same thing – a semblance of knowledge and authority that can reinforce their arguments. Scientists already have that.

They just need to learn how to better use it.__Earle Holland

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Of mice and men . . .

Posted on March 23rd, 2009 by earleholland

Research mice The research in question was fairly straightforward.

Take two sets of mice – those that were housed singularly and those that lived with companions — induce a stroke in their brains and compare their survival rates.

The human brain At question was whether the identical mice lived longer in isolation or with comrades. The experiment was testing the impacts of immunological changes brought on by social interaction. And it possibly might one day suggest new ways to limit, if not thwart, stroke damage.

Results of the experiments were first reported last November at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Our story reporting that presentation began with . . .

“STUDY SHOWS HOW SOCIAL SUPPORT MAY PROTECT BRAIN DURING STROKE

“New research in mice suggests that high levels of social support may provide some protection against strokes by reducing the amount of damaging inflammation in the brain.

“Researchers at Ohio State University found that male mice that lived with a female partner before and after a stroke had a much higher survival rate compared to those mice that lived alone.” [read more]

That story garnered a few news stories but, given that it was but one paper delivered among hundreds at one of the year’s largest science meetings, the news was barely a flash in the pan.

So when a more recent report on the same research was accepted for publication in the respected Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we figured it deserved a second chance. But this time, we traded the earlier hopeful prospects from the study to something more dismal. It read . . .

“SOCIAL ISOLATION MAKES STROKES MORE DEADLY, STUDY FINDS

“New research in mice suggests that social isolation may promote more damaging inflammation in the brain during a stroke.

“Researchers at Ohio State University found that all the male mice that lived with a female partner survived seven days after a stroke, but only 40 percent of socially isolated animals lived that long.” [read more]

The data was the same for both stories – only the suggested implications changed. In effect, did the study show a glass half-full or one half-empty?

A glass half-full . . . or half-empty? For scientists — and for the journalists who follow their work — those two interpretations encapsulate an ongoing challenge – the data derived from most research is usually unequivocal.

The implications, however, usually aren’t.

The public usually wants a simpler answer than just the data – they want to know what it means, and usually, they want to know specifically what the research means to them!

Science seldom can provide that answer, so interpretations tend to reveal the hidden biases of researchers and reporters alike.

For the latter group, it’s understood that most news is bad. But researchers tend to see the promise in their discoveries. So there’s always a delicate dance between the two in their collective effort to be both accurate and interesting.

And the public can be left confused.

The solution may be quite simple, once you think about it. Can a statement be “read” two seemingly opposite ways?

If we hear that 5 percent of the public is susceptible to a virus, doesn’t that mean that 95 percent are not?

Such questions don’t negate the findings, but they do help keep them in perspective. And it’s that perspective that lends value to the research findings we hear.

For us older, more morose husbands, though, the mouse study might suggest a different slant:

“LIVING ALONE MAY INSURE STROKE VICTIMS A QUICKER, MORE MERCIFUL DEATH

“Married stroke victims may suffer slower, more-lingering deaths than would similar patients who have no spouse, if the findings of a recent study in mice would apply to humans.”

That’s not a story I plan on sharing at home.__Earle Holland

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What we don’t see . . .

Posted on March 12th, 2009 by earleholland

Any reasonable person watching last week’s Nightline program on ABC News would have been suitably aghast about its allegations against the New Iberia Primate Center in Louisiana. The six minutes of hidden video allegedly taken from inside the country’s largest primate research facility seemed to warrant the expose’ treatment the reporters used.

A resident of the New Iberia Primate Center The Humane Society of the United States, one of the country’s largest and best-funded animal rights groups, gave the video to the network to culminate their nine-month “undercover investigation” that they claimed showed abuse of primates. An HSUS Some of the outdoor enclosurs at the New Iberia Primate Center. operative supposedly had worked for the facility for the better part of a year, during which she said she took the footage.

As a result of the network airing, and HSUS’ claims of More outdoor enclosures at New Iberia. abuse at New Iberia, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which enforces the federal Animal Welfare Act, announced an investigation into the allegations. The National Institutes of Health and the University of Louisiana, which runs New Iberia, will likely follow suit.

And that’s a good thing! Research facilities that use animals in their studies have to comply with a stringent set of conditions, commonly referred to as “The Guide.” Violations of these requirements rightfully can lead to sanctions and fines and, in the most severe cases, a curtailment of the animal use.

Responsible researchers and research institutions understand this and toe the line accordingly.

But while institutions have to adhere to accepted “best practices” in their work, the network and HSUS clearly don’t.

Consider the following:

Much is made in the reporting of New Iberia’s use of tranquilizer guns to sedate chimps at the facility. The video shows at one point an adult chimp being shot with a sedative and then, several minutes later, falling to the ground. The accompanying dialogue bemoans the possible injury the sedated animal might have received.

What is conveniently missing from the discourse is the fact that adult chimpanzees are so dangerous that this form of administering sedatives is considered a best practice by lab animal vets, balancing the anxiety of the animals with the safety of the human keepers.

People forget that adult chimps are six times stronger than adult humans, pound for pound, and can unexpectedly turn vicious without warning. The recent mutilation and near-killing of a Connecticut woman last month by a pet chimp is clear evidence of this risk, and similar incidents have occurred in recent years.

Also, plenty of the Nightline video – and HSUS’ video online as well – showed rows and rows of primates in tiny, confining cages, emphasizing the animals’ agitated running in circles and shaking of cage bars as indications of their deprivation. Frankly, the portrait the video paints may well indicate inappropriate housing, but the video alone isn’t necessarily evidence of that.

Anyone who works with large primates – especially chimps – will tell you that when someone unfamiliar approaches the chimps’ cages or enclosures, they will display aggressive and forceful activity, in essence, establishing their place in the hierarchy of dominance. Primates are “social” animals and their place in the pecking order is usually hard-won.

The video of the cages and such for some animals infers a physical restriction on animals which, when normally found in nature, have large areas in which to roam. What only the most attentive viewers will notice in those seemingly restricted areas are open “pass-throughs” through which the animals can leave the building and romp in large, spacious enclosures. A video provided by New Iberia several days after the airing shows acres and acres of such enclosures at the facility where animals get ample exercise.

Producers of the ABC segment evidently neglected to show those facilities.

Lastly, the program stated that neither university officials nor those from the NIH elected to be interviewed on air, instead providing written statements from which only a few words were shown. Who can blame them – or any researchers for that matter – for declining the opportunity to be grilled on air based on selective, edited video provided by an anonymous source?

ABC News What’s frustrating about this kind of expose’ journalism directed at science and research is not what is shown but what is omitted.

In this case, viewers are expected to take on faith the accuracy of the claims of the “undercover” employee, even though that individual used blatant dishonesty to obtain the video.

Viewers are also expected to assume what is shown is the whole truth while in reality, the fact that six minutes of video is offered without context and spans a nine-month period.

And HSUS, in releasing the material selectively to ABC far enough in advance that the network could produce a Nightline segment, was consciously acting on its own previously stated position opposing the use of animals in research. It was pure public relations – not news.

Some things may be wrong at New Iberia. But until the USDA, NIH and others complete bona fide investigations of the allegations and find evidence supporting the abuse claims, viewers should reserve their judgments. The real test will be whether, if New Iberia is cleared of these allegations, ABC will devote equal time to clearing the institution’s name and looking more deeply at HSUS’ allegations.

I won’t hold my breath.__Earle Holland

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