University Daily Kansan / Thursday, April 16, 1992
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Recent government regulations hinder scientific research, MIT professor says
By Janet Rorholm
Kansan staff writer
Because of misconduct and fraud by a few scientists, all scientists are suffering from rules and regulations the government has placed upon them, a former director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said last night.
Eisen smoke to about 80 people in Haworth Hall last night.
Daron J Bennett/KANSAN
Herman Eisen, professor emeritus of immunology at M.I.T., said that such an environment made scientific discovery and creat-
He was the director at M.I.T. six years ago when a highly publicized case of alleged misconduct occurred. Nobel Laureate David Baltimore, former president of Rockefeller University, and imanii Kari, now president of Tufts University, were accused by a fellow lab worker of misinterpreting data from research on the immune-system responses in mice.
The government responded to this and other cases by imposing stricter rules and regulations on research used with government money. A scientist now must justify and evaluate where all government money goes.
"After six years, it still has not been settled," Eisen said. "I think the reason it has not been settled is because of the intrusion by the government. It could have been handled more effectively by scientists."
If there is fraud, it should go to the legal system where a person can be tried with due process, he said. Congressional subcommittees handle incidents such as the M.I.T. case, rather than the court system.
The National Institute of Health also is involved with the investigation of the M.I.T. case. Because of outside pressure, the institute was forced to create the Office of Scientific Integrity, which monitors scientists' behavior.
"In my opinion, who needs it?" Eisen said. "The fact is that it is a political necessity given the climate of the time."
Before government regulation, there was an unwritten contract between the government and scientists, he said. The government gave scientists money for research and let scientists decide where to monitor themselves to monitor themselves for misconduct or fraudulent behavior
"How this whole thing will end and when it will end I don't know," he said. "But I am optimistic that the benefits of science will flow
Herman Eisen, professor emeritus of immunology at MIT,
talks about whether science and politics mix.
toward the public and this matter of trust that has been under- undermined will be established again."
Charles Wood, KU associate professor of microbiology, said that he agreed with Eisen that there is now a state of paranoia in
"Because this case involved a celebrity, it has been blown out of proportion." Wood said.
Veterans blame suffering on mustard gas experiment
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Veterans told a National Academy of Sciences panel yesterday that they still suffered physical and psychological problems because they volunteered for the Navy's secret mustard gas experiments in World War II.
"Seven days a week, I go to bed with it on my mind," said Victor LaBate of Garrettsville, Md., who took part in the experiments as a 17-year-old Navy recruit.
"Most of my scars are up here," LaBate said, pointing to his head.
LaBate and others also told of physical ailments, including skin cancer, sight and hearing loss, shortness of breath, and digestive ailments. They said they thought these were linked to the long-secret experiments.
One member of the scientific panel, Vincent T. Marcesi of the Yale University School of Medicine, said the link would be difficult to prove after so many years.
"Everything you have described I have seen in men and women of your age," Marchesi theobviously notbad off as you laugh.
David Rall, the head of the panel, said, "Your testimony has
been very impressive and we will look at it very hard and very carefully."
The scientists are collecting information for the Department of Veterans Affairs for use in formulating new rules governing compensation for mustard-gas victims.
The Navy kept the tests secret until June, when the government said it would write new rules that should make it easier to obtain benefits.
CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" was working on a story on the subject at the time.
Witnesses told the panel they were sworn to secrecy and for years did not disclose their participation in the experiments.
"I never told a soul," said LaBate. "I never filed a claim."
Johnnie H. Ross of Robsonville, N.C., told the panel, "In World War II, the Germans put the Jews in the gas tank. The United States put their men in the gas tank."
Charles Cavell of Richmond, Va., his voice shaking, testified, "It's just like I'm reliving that part of my life again."
Cavell said he started taking medical tests last year at the request of the department.
Witnesses said the experiments, conducted by the Naval
Research Laboratory to test protective clothing for mustard-gas, involved going into a gas-filled chamber in Maryland during a period of seven days.
"The men were exposed every day to see when their skin started to redden," said Constance Pechura of the academy's Institute of Medicine, which conducted the hearing.
"When the skin started to reden, the clothing was not working."
The statement of Millard Scudder of Dillsboro, Ind., was read for him by his grandson, Jason Montgomery, 15, who said Scudder was unable to read for any length of time. He also said that his grandfather, who walks with a cane, had been told that he may soon be paralyzed.
Elmer Hood, 64, a retired appliance and vending machine repairman from Monroe, N.C., said the experiments had made it difficult for him to perform his duties at the time.
"I was called a goof-off," he said. "but I did manage."
In an interview earlier, Hood told North Carolina's Charlotte Observer, "There were 200 of us who were entrapped in a chamber and gassed. There's only about 40 of us still alive."
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