ABC, Phil. Inquirer, Newark Star-Ledger, etc: How a politician’s slight scares off scientists, fosters mumble-mumble research proposals
During the recent Presidential campaign much was made of the Republican candidates’ tendencies to pull science project titles out of context as exhibits of taxpayer money down rat holes. You may recall those one-liners from people who should have known better, ridiculing studies of bear DNA, scoffing at an “overhead projector” that costs millions, and snorting (”..I kid you not..”) at the science of fruit flies in France.
Now comes a report from a Rutgers resarcher, in the Public Library of Science that dissects one politico’s pronouncement about certain studies of sexual behavior and HIV infection as improper use of tax money. The NIH wound up clearing the research as fully valid. But one result, it says here, was a chilling effect on subsequent research proposals. The investigation itself subjected many researchers to intense scrutiny. That, it appears, spawned a gun-shy corner of the academy. Some turned to self-censorship by obscuring the real topics of their later studies, just to evade the eagle-eyed lunacy of public figures looking for cheap shots to take. Some just decided to do something else.
The Financial Times’s Andrew Jack in London says plainly that the result was to prevent important HIV research. At the Philadelphia Inquirer, Tom Avril enterprisingly finds a representative of a traditional value advocacy organization who doesn’t apologize, but celebrates the campaign’s chilling impact on research into sex.
Other stories:
- Newark Star-Ledger Angela Stewart ;
- ABC News Lauren Cox ;
Grist for the Mill:
-CP
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