Letter: Student loans
Tam Dalyell mentions the effect of the student loans scheme on recruitment
into low-paid professions such as teaching (Thistle Diary, 3 March). An
added dimension is the damage that could be done to postgraduate research.
New graduates will eventually have a prodigious debt to repay, and could
easily be discouraged from embarking on a further three years of study on
a low income, given that the extra earning power of a PhD is generally minimal.
Many of our brightest young scientists may opt instead for a career
in industry, which promises to exploit their intellectual abilities while
also providing greater financial rewards and better long-term prospects.
Even those with a real hankering for a future in academia may for financial
reasons consider it necessary to work for a few years, before accepting
a putative research studentship. Inevitably, a proportion of these talented
individuals will be reluctant to return to university, once they have had
the chance to compare their existing prospects with the relatively poor
salaries and lack of career stability which young postdoctoral researchers
must suffer, at a time when thoughts of settling down are probably uppermost
in their minds.
How, I wonder, does Mrs Thatcher reconcile this with her much publicised
intention to promote ‘basic’ scientific research in this country?
Nicholas D. Efford Lancaster
Letter: Bureaucracy gone mad
As a member of the very ‘officialdom’ (American branch) railed against
by Bob Bagnall (Forum, 17 February), I too faced the problem of measuring
professional worth; of bureaucrats in my case, not academics. My solution,
brilliant, therefore unenacted, was to turn, surprisingly enough, to the
academic system called ‘peer review’. I proposed that a bureaucrat’s worth
be evaluated, anonymously, by a small group of the reviewee’s peers who
engaged in the same line of work.
While the human being is possessed of truly awesome guile and enough
perverse ingenuity to subvert any worthwhile systematic endeavour, peer
review can come mightily close to ensuring that an issue is assessed only
on its technical substance with a minimum consideration of personalities
or hierarchical imperatives. Ponderous, yet ineffective, regulation that
seeks to guarantee excellence by substituting decree for thoughtfulness
can be evaded, as we all know, at will.
David H. Slade Silver Spring, Maryland, US
Letter: Useful rejects
In her article ‘Dreams that do what they’re told’ (6 January), Susan
Blackmore discusses a paper on rapid-eye-movement sleep which, in 1980,
was rejected by both Science and Nature, and points out that two researchers
were working on the matter unbeknown to each other.
The original aim of the system of peer assessment of papers was, no
doubt, the promulgation of ‘objective knowledge’. However, reviewers have
become obsessed with the perfection of method, with the result that the
pursuit of knowledge takes a back seat. As in so many institutions, the
purpose becomes forgotten and the trappings become the reality. In the case
of scientific literature, important lines of research are surely being lost.
The subjective factors dictating how anything becomes ‘objective knowledge’
are complex and not widely understood. It is well known, however, that it
is extremely difficult to obtain funds to do research to the standards expected
by reputable scientific journals unless the subject is already well accepted.
It is easy to see that the type of scientist selected to review papers is
not necessarily the kind who would be very open-minded to the kind of thing
discussed in this paper.
Some debate is urgently needed and some better solutions found. One
would be an index with synopses of all papers rejected by Science, Nature
and similar journals, possibly with some kind of rating given by the reviewers
which indicates the reasons for rejection.
Interested people would then have the opportunity to obtain the paper
and contact the authors with a view to refining the research. The information
that work is being done elsewhere would also help funding.
E. J. Spain Hong Kong
Letter: Flatworms' turn
It was interesting to see the picture of the New Zealand land planarian
Artioposthia triangulata now devastating the earthworm populations in Ireland
(In Brief, 10 February). The first published photographs appeared in The
Irish Naturalists’ Journal back in 1977 with a paper documenting the occurrence
of the flatworm in Northern Ireland, by R. S. Willis and Ron Edwards of
the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland. Their photographs also
showed the very large (up to 8.5 millimetres long and 6.0 millimetres wide)
distinctive, shiny black egg capsules. Although A triangulata has been found
in northern England and Scotland, it seems to be having a particularly serious
effect in Ireland. When I left Belfast in 1988 it had become almost impossible
to find earthworms in our garden.
The flatworms were the subject of a prize-winning entry at the 25th
Aer Lingus Young 杏吧原创s Exhibition held at the Royal Dublin Society
in January 1989. Under the title ‘The Invasion of the Worm Snatchers’, pupils
of St Patrick’s Grammar School, Armagh, showed that in some areas there
may be up to 1600 flatworms per hectare, each attacking on average two earthworms
per night.
It would be interesting to know what has happened in New Zealand since
the flatworm was first recorded there in 1894. With the increased popularity
of garden centres throughout Britain, where will it strike next?
Elizabeth Platts (Former editor, INJ) Winchester
Letter: Stomach tumours
Frank Lesser’s article ‘Drug firms in dispute over side effects of ulcer
treatments’ contained a serious factual error and failed to examine the
scientific importance of our test (This Week, 3 March). Glaxo’s ranitidine
(Zantac) has never shown carcinoid nodules in animal stomachs; nor have
other marketed short-acting H2-blockers (cimetidine, famotidine,
nizatidine).
The problem of stomach carcinoid tumours has occurred with long-acting
drugs, such as loxtidine, which Glaxo withdrew from development in 1985,
and Astra’s omeprazole (Losec). Both drugs cause gastrin levels to rise
and to persist to a similar extent. Astra argues that the carcinoid tumours
are caused by gastrin stimulation alone which is reversible. The evidence
conflicts with this view. Omeprazole produced about twice as many tumours
in rats as loxtidine and in a dose-related manner. This suggests some additional
‘trigger’ mechanism with omeprazole.
The standard genotoxicity screening tests failed to predict that carcinoid
tumours would occur in life-span rodent tests with loxtidine. Therefore,
our toxicologists have examined loxtidine in a large number of different
test systems to see if any would be more reliable in screening out compounds
with carcinogenic potential. All were negative.
However, none of these tests actually look at what happens in stomach
cells. Our toxicologists modified an existing test which measures ‘unscheduled
DNA synthesis’ (UDS) in superficial non-dividing stomach cells; UDS indicates
DNA damage and repair. Known stomach carcinogens are positive in the UDS
test – so it ought to predict carcinogenic potential. Loxtidine was negative.
Since omeprazole also produces carcinoid tumours it was decided to put it
through the UDS test. It proved positive. Two short-acting H2-blockers
(ranitidine and cimetidine) were negative, which was consistent with the
absence of cancers in their long-term rodent tests.
Faced with this positive result, the next question is how omeprazole
might cause DNA damage in stomach cells but not cells in other test systems.
In fact, omeprazole is a ‘pro-drug’ that is absorbed, then passes in the
blood stream to the stomach wall where it diffuses towards the surface.
In that acid environment it is transformed into a highly-reactive derivative
that binds to the proton-pump inhibiting it and reducing acid secretion.
This derivative might be genotoxic. It would not be expected to be formed
to any extent in the neutral pH of other test systems, so it is conceivable
that they might fail to detect its potential genotoxicity.
The scientific importance of the Glaxo UDS test is that it presents
for the first time the opportunity to examine the damage by compounds on
the genetic (DNA) material of stomach cells. The DNA repair process can
go wrong, producing a change in genetic code that is permanent. A mistake
may ‘trigger’ cancerous growth. Any positive genotoxicity test must question
the continued development of a compound because it signals the possibility
of an irreversible change. That is the significance or our findings and
the reason why we have stopped our omeprazole comparative clinical trials.
Robert N. Smith Glaxo Group Research Greenford, Middlesex
Letter: Shakespeare's line
F. G. Grisley wonders whether Shakespeare’s line ‘Doubt that the sun
doth move’ from Hamlet’s letter to Ophelia meant the bard was ignorant of
Copernicus’s work, defending a lost cause or being ironic (Letters, 17 February).
I am presently rehearsing with Sir Peter Hall, who knows a bit about Shakespeare,
so I asked him. ‘None of them,’ he replied, ‘he was writing a period piece.’
Nichola McAuliffe London SE22
Letter: Animal experiments
Trust a geneticist (Ursula Mittwoch, Forum, 3 March) to emphasise genetic
scarcity value as a criterion for exempting species from animal experiments.
By this criterion over-prolific human beings would be the ideal experimental
animal. Peter Singer and other proponents of animal rights, on the other
hand, clearly distinguish between animals which can perceive pain and those
which cannot. This strikes me as a much more logical criterion than either
scarcity or intelligence.
L. C. Gamsa-Jackson Chelmsford, Essex
Letter: Einstein-Maric
Those who deduce from Einstein’s use of the double name ‘Einstein-Maric’
on some of his manuscripts that his wife acted as joint author (This Week,
3 March) should be advised that in Switzerland it is customary for a married
man to hyphenate his wife’s name to his own. The first time I went there
I lodged with M and Mme Cornu-Guignard, but as a bachelor he had been plain
M Cornu.
John Brunner South Petherton, Somerset
Letter: Cordless phones
Concern over the possibility of overhearing conversations on cordless
telephones (Feedback, 3 February) is hardly new. Any radio communications
and particularly those using amplitude modulation are open to interception.
In 1984, the Institution of Electrical Engineers published a report
on ‘Privacy and security in civil telecommunications’. Recommendation 1
read: ‘Public attention should be drawn to the increasing danger of unauthorised
intrusion in communications arising out of both the increasing use of electromagnetic
systems to replace the older forms of communication and the technology available
to the intruder.’
Charles Hughes University of Essex