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Letters : Needle point

Retford, Nottinghamshire

With reference to Arthur Moore’s comments on pain during a local anaesthetic
injection in a thumb (Letters, 13 July, p
50), I feel that his good opinion of
the skills of NHS dentists, although welcome, is slightly overstated.

There are several factors that make dental injections more tolerable than
medical ones, the main one being that because the oral mucosa is so much
thinner
than the skin, a much finer gauge of needle may be used to deliver the
anaesthetic. Also, the oral mucosa takes up anaesthetic topically, so before I
inject a site, I allow a little anaesthetic to drop or be sprayed onto the
mucosa a couple of seconds before the needle is inserted. Some dentists use a
gel containing anaesthetic.

Third, the hand is much more sensitive than the oral mucosa. I have had many
general anaesthetics and the usual inoculations and jabs with little
discomfort.
I have also, however, occasionally and accidentally stuck a very fine dental
needle into my finger in the course of routine work, and IT BLOODY HURTS!

Please ask Mr Moore not to be too hard on doctors. I am sure they do
try.

Letters : Industrial resistance

St Albans, Hertfordshire

Michael Day (This Week, 13 July, p 4)
correctly stressed the importance of
antimalarial drugs derived from Chinese wormwood (Artemisia annua) for
the treatment of malignant tertian malaria caused by parasites that are highly
resistant to synthetic drugs such as chloroquine. An effective antimalarial
vaccine is, sadly, not likely to be produced in the near future. In the
meantime, the looming threat of resistance to quinine, especially in Africa, is
one that cannot be ignored.

I would like to draw readers’ attention to two points. First, Plasmodium
falciparum, the cause of malignant tertian disease, has a remarkable
capacity for producing genetic variants that can overcome drugs of widely
divergent chemical types. The entire history of malaria chemotherapy has shown
that when any compound is deployed extensively in monotherapy these parasites
will sooner or later become resistant. At long last it is being recognised that
the use of carefully and rationally selected drug combinations can at least
impede the emergence of drug resistance, if not prevent it.

The second point is that a number of novel antimalarial drugs other than
those derived from artemisinin are available in various stages of development.
However, it is extremely difficult to get the pharmaceuticals industry
interested in the development of drugs for use against such exotic diseases
since it (probably incorrectly) believes that such compounds will not make
profits. It is very costly to carry a new drug through all the stages from
synthesis to clinical use, even for one of the so-called “orphan drugs” for
tropical diseases.

Cheap compounds that act as well as artemether are required. A whole family
of synthetic peroxides that could, in principle, fill this role exist (see
Meshnick et al, Parasitology Today, 1996, vol 12, p 79). But which, if
any, company will invest adequate capital into advancing them from the research
laboratory to the clinic? Half of the world’s population is exposed to malaria.
At least two million, mainly African infants and young children, die from
falciparum malaria every year. The provision of funds for antimalarial
development is not simply one of commercial choice—it is also a moral
issue. If no one company wishes to take on such a task, is it not high time for
industry to pool its resources to support the development of the most promising
new antimalarials?

Letters : Bulb confusion

Cambridge

The claim that imports of wild bulbs from Turkey to the Netherlands is
strictly controlled (Letters, 6 July, p 49)
is disingenuous in the extreme. Not
only is Turkey not a party to CITES but our successful attempts (alongside
Turkish conservation group DHKD) to promote local propagation are now being
jeopardised by Dutch importing of snowdrops from Georgia (over 5 million in
1995, greater volumes reported for 1996). Over the past year the Dutch Bulb
Exporters Association has repeatedly failed to give reassurances that they will
only import wild bulbs when collection is clearly demonstrated as
sustainable.

Such behaviour is remarkable in 1996 and seriously undermines the
respectability of the Dutch bulb trade. Readers who wish to avoid buying wild
bulbs can now send for FFI’s Good Bulb Guide (£1.50 + A5 sae) to
FFI, Great
Eastern House, Cambridge CB1 2DT.

Letters : Funding furore

Oxford

“You’ve all got it wrong” says the title to Terence Kealey’s article
(29
June, p 22) in which he recommends that governments should not fund
science.

But Kealey’s analysis is massively flawed. It is written by a scientist who,
stepping outside his laboratory into the minefield of economics, loses all
caution and readily chooses causes to “explain” any correlation: given a
chicken
and an egg, he knows which came first. Most would believe that rising
investment
in research and development has been a major engine of growth in national
prosperity; Dr Kealey prefers perversely to assert the inverse. The government
of his favourite country, Japan, certainly believed investment came first, and
set about ensuring that it did so at least as far back as the 1960s.

His views of history are entertaining but irrelevant in the modern, rapidly
evolving science and technology-based world. The Japanese are not looking back
but forward to the challenges of the next century, and they are worried. A
government paper looking at the state of the universities and national research
centres finds: “low research funds, out-of-date facilities and equipment, lack
of personnel, ageing researchers…” Sounds familiar?

But, unlike Britain where government cuts are making the situation worse, in
Japan remedial action is taken: “It is imperative for government to
increase its
investment in R&D without delay.” Government funding for science has
increased by 25 per cent since 1992, and is expected to double by 2000.

Letters : . . .

As a clinical biochemist, Terence Kealey presumably has good
opportunities to
collaborate with industry in order to fund his research. There are many
areas of
fundamental science which do not so readily appeal to industry, however. If
industry is to be the arbiter of what is scientifically worthwhile and
valid—then heaven help science.

Then there is philanthropy. Kealey labours under the delusion that rich
people are anxious to give handouts for basic research. For some reason he
quotes the case of Charles Darwin as an example of scientific success in the
absence of government funding.

Darwin’s intellectual impetus came from his work during the round-the-world
voyages of The Beagle on a government-funded expedition. Thereafter he was not
supported by philanthropy, but by his personal fortune and that of his
wife Emma
Wedgewood. The notion that a modern, but penniless, Darwin could produce books
about the pollination of orchids or the burrowing of earthworms whilst
supported
by a rich patron (or pharmaceuticals company) is ludicrous.

Letters : . . .

Aberystwyth

Terence Kealey’s singular views in “You’ve all got it wrong” contained so
many errors, half-truths, non sequiturs and distortions as to lead one to
wonder
whether it was intended merely as a gadfly. But such views are so
dangerous that
a few rebuttals are needed.

To the results of a survey showing that some 10 per cent of new processes
“could not have been developed without substantial delay in the absence of
recent [my italics] academic research”, Kealey states that therefore “some
90 per cent of new technology arises from the development of pre-existing
technology—not from academic science”. That subtle loss of the word
“recent” shows just how little Kealey understands either the point or timescale
of blue skies research, and omits to mention the academic origins of much
of the
90 per cent.

It is simply ludicrous to state that the British government only started to
fund science because of war and cite events at the time of the First World War.
Astronomers Royal have been government employees since at least the 17th
century, and prizes for navigation aids, Babbage’s calculating engine and so
forth long predate the First World War.

Letters : Deep past

Umea, Sweden

Marine archaeology is another application for synthetic aperture sonar (SAS)
that will be just as rewarding as laying cables and drilling for oil
(“Snap
happy under the sea”, 22 June, p 34). The deeper levels of the
Black Sea are
anoxic, and ancient items of wood that would have been consumed by worms
elsewhere may still remain down there.

If a sonar array was towed underneath the surface layers of varying
temperature and salinity, SAS might just pick out a small object on the
seafloor
2 kilometres down. The first targets for SAS marine archaeology would be
ancient
sunken vessels but, as resolution improves, even individual logs of driftwood
could be salvaged, to provide a “fixed” series of dendrochronology rings right
back to the Ice Age.

Today, dendrochronology is a more precise tool for dating than radiocarbon,
but recent attempts to extend an absolute chronology for Anatolian tree rings
back to 2220 BC remain controversial, since there is a gap between 718 BC
and AD
362 that must be bridged by matching these tree-ring sequences with tree rings
from other regions.

Logs from the seafloor would not only give the archaeology of the eastern
Mediterranean civilisations an absolute chronology, they could also give a
detailed picture of the climate change ten millennia ago that compelled our
ancestors to abandon their easy hunter-gatherer existence for the hard
work, but
relatively secure food supplies, of early farming.

Letters : Who's in charge?

Auckland, New Zealand

In your May 25 issue (This Week, p 7)
you report Jean-Pierre Contzen as
saying: “We must demonstrate to our political masters that global change
research…” Demonstrate, yes, by all means. Often. But masters? Let’s get
it right: we employ them. Was this a translation error, or are Europeans going
soft?

Letters : Asbestos menace

London

You state, “In Britain, white asbestos—the least dangerous of the
three
forms of the material—can still be used” (This Week, 13 July, p 8). It is
true that it can still be used in Britain, whilst the brown and blue forms are
banned, but just how dangerous is it?

A recent detailed review, published in the American Journal of Public
Health, looked at 12 medical studies of workers exposed mainly to white
asbestos. Among the total workforce, 612 lung cancer deaths were expected, but
992 were found. The excess was not due to smoking habits. Less than one (0.3)
case of the asbestos cancer, mesothelioma, would have been expected and 41 were
found (there is no association with smoking for this cancer). I guess that the
families and friends of these workers killed painfully by white asbestos would
not agree with it being rated as least dangerous.

That is presumably why France has just banned the use of all asbestos and
Denmark, Italy, Germany, Holland and Sweden have previously done so. It is also
one of the main reasons that this union, with many thousands of asbestos
victims, has just called for a total ban on all forms of asbestos.

Letters : . . .

Belfast, Northern Ireland

To conclude that “governments are irrelevant” because the funding of science
is economically based is hasty of Kealey. He mentioned nothing of the other key
economic variables, particularly interest rates. In fact, in setting interest
rates, the government has a critical role in determining the level of
funding by
private enterprise, more so than government spending. The long-term commitment
to a low-interest policy means a lower cost of capital (cheaper loans) for
enterprise. For example, Germany and Switzerland have over the past 40
years had
the lowest inflation, stemming from government policy on interest rates. As
Kealey’s data show, both Germany and Switzerland are top of the research
stakes.
In this regard, both government and private sector go hand in hand.

As regards laissez faire, his historical ramblings overlook that German and
American industrialists were given an artificial means to maintain their
profitability in the face of intense competition via tariffs.

Lastly, as Kealey mentioned, it takes years of training before a scientist
can contribute to the research process and then to private industry. With this
in mind, I ask: How many ads do you see for undergraduate science students from
the private sector?