1.5th world

Why does it always seem like Australia is a bit behind the rest of the developed world? Movies, music and TV always gets here late, and so does science. Everything from ethanol to stem cells is somehow stymied by the parochial attitudes that are prevalent in our current government.

Australians really seem to enjoy hating America, as if they're on some kind of moral -- and intellectual -- high ground. I'd like to contend that we're not, on the basis of the science that's practised here vs. there. It's not just a funding issue: it's a mental block.

Exhibit A: Ethanol , a potentially green source of fuel, is not just used in the United States, it's being heavily researched there. While ethanol's current edge over oil is debatable, it's very promising if it can be harvested in energy-efficient ways. In Australia, research into ethanol is minimal, and its use is not being encouraged, despite petrol prices rising above $1.40 per litre. So much for progress.

Exhibit B: Mifepristone is currently available in many countries around the world, including "developing" countries such as Turkey and Tunisia. It is approved by the World Health Organization and is also in use in the US, a country supposedly more conservative than Australia. Seems like the pro-lifers don't have as much effect on what medical treatments are available to women in difficult situations.

Exhibit C: This one's a little more promising, but I'll include it anyway. Embryonic stem cell research is currently non-existent in Australia, but it just might be back on the cards. It's not happening much in the US either, but it is in California. So if an American scientist wanted to do stem cell research, he or she would only have to relocate to California, not to a different country.

Which brings me to my final point. Australia, remote island of small population that it is, can ill afford to lose its most promising scientists to other countries, but the brain drain has been going on for too long already. We urgently need to replace sport with science as the national religion of this country, or we'll just fall further and further behind.

What was I consenting to again?

At 3:52 PM, PmH said...
It seems unreasonable to expect anyone to be capable of signing an informed consent form unless they understand the planned test, the risks and the legal remedies.

PmH quite rightly pointed out that I basically ignored one of the important points of this article:
Guinea pigs do sign “consent forms” that detail the risks; but Tom Edwards, a 21- year-old from Oxford who took part in another Parexel trial, pointed out that his form was 15-pages long. He said he felt “pressured” into signing the form and eventually did so without reading all of it “because I felt like I was slowing everyone down”.

I don't think anyone could have predicted the side effects of TGN1412, but even ordinary trials can be fairly hazardous. Participants need to understand the potential risks and feel that they can refuse to take part if they feel the risk to be too great -- this is basic informed consent.

High school science leaves most of the population ill equipped to deal with a 15-page form which was most likely written in the worst combination of science lingo and legalese imaginable. Tertiary science leaves scientists ill eqipped to write consent forms that the general population can understand, and therefore give informed consent to. Either way, the onus lies on science educators to lift their game and level the playing field somewhat. Obviously there is a need for technical language, and every type of specialty, whether in philosophy or physiology. But there's a time and a place for it.

On the other hand, the average citizen could use a better grasp of science. The same people who don't understand consent forms also don't really understand the science they read in the newspapers, or its implications to their lives (unless the particular science journalist is better than average). Their way of verifying scientific hearsay is to go through their catalogue of anecdotes until they find a situation that confirms or denies the report. And they believe that intelligent design is a plausible alternative to evolution.

For its own good, scientists need to teach better and communicate better; really these are both the same thing.

Three reflections on being a new mother and a science nerd

1. The baby steals your brain while you're pregnant, but you get (most of) it back sometime after birth.*
2. Knowing about science really helps when weeding through all the advice about baby health.
3. (a) Breastfeeding is a great time to catch up on your backlog of New Scientist and Cosmos.
   (b) Baby vomit wipes off Cosmos better than off NS.

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*Individual results may vary.

Sneezy season

The immune system is a mysterious thing. Protective overall, and yet sometimes it backfires. A dramatic illustration of the immune system going wrong was the TGN1412 disaster: six young men given a monoclonal antibody in a clinical trial ended up in ICU with multiple organ failure. One is now showing signs of an aggressive cancer.

Less dramatic, but more aggravating to more people on a more regular basis, are your run-of-the-mill allergies. Almost everyone I know is allergic to something: peanuts, cats, dust, pineapple. I personally have some mild allergies to some animals, but a major reaction to dust mites. When I got an allergy skin test, the swelling that appeared in response to dust mites moved beyond the realm of a few millimetres, which they usually measure, and looked disturbingly like a fat worm under my skin.

It's bewildering, too, the different things that people say about what causes allergies. It seems that no one can agree on whether it's over- or under-exposure to the allergen that causes the immune system to go nuts and attack a harmless molecule. Now it's been suggested that the window of opportunity for avoiding the nastiness of an allergy is pretty small: sometime between six months and nine months of age, at least for food-related allergies.

Personally I don't think there's a straight answer to this one and it just highlights the intricacy of the body, which can work against us or in our favour, but is fascinating regardless.