Next to me lies a book published in 1992. It is titled: ‘Malaria: Waiting for the vaccine’. That’s eighteen years ago, but vaccination against malaria is still not a reality. It has proven very difficult to develop a potent and effective vaccine against the Plasmodium parasite. At present, a huge trial, across several African countries and involving sixteen thousand children, is underway. The RTS,S vaccine is perhaps the magic bullet we’ve been waiting for all this time.
Here I am touching on the issue of promises. Promises that are being made as part of the game we call scientific endeavour. Exploring the unknown to stumble upon something that provides a cure for mankind’s worst diseases.
Scientist
As a scientist, you cannot survive these days without making promises. When writing a grant proposal you need to provide as much evidence as possible that your search for the unknown will yield what you promise. Strikingly, this goes right against the basics of scientific endeavour. After all, how can you make promises if you don’t know what you are looking for?
Worse, these days most funding organisations ask you to stipulate in detail a multi-year work plan before you receive any cash to start your research. If you are lucky, you have guessed exactly the outcome of research in year 1, then year 2, and so on, until you reach the end of your project. If you are not lucky, your research in year 1 shows that your ideas were wrong from the start. But then you are stuck with several years of research that should be different but should follow the promises you made. This sounds crazy, but happens a lot. Millions of dollars are wasted because of this senseless rigour. Room for creativity, providing the very fundament of scientific endeavour, is gone.
If your research is not turning out grand results, you have a problem. The way to solve this is to try and publish your findings in as much a prestigious journal as possible. If your work gets rejected there, you move one step down (to a less prestigious journal), and then again one step down, until you find a journal that is willing to publish your article. Sounds crazy again, but is common practice in any academic environment I have worked in or with.
In the old days (say twenty years ago) if your results weren’t all that great, you would file them and perhaps forget about them until a later date. These days, virtually any piece of research that has yielded results (good or bad) gets published. To satisfy the donor by showing that you have kept your promise that you would publish the work in international peer-reviewed journals. There are more than 3000 research articles on malaria published every year. Only a small percentage of these really lead to change in the way we control malaria…
The result: Scientists continue to juggle with promises.
Once I heard a great way of circumventing these problems. A scientist told me that he would write a grant proposal for work he had already done and knew the outcome of. In that way he could tailor the proposal to exactly fit his promises. When the money would come in, he would, from time to time, send in results, and everyone was happy. Meanwhile he used the money to fund research that was truly innovative and groundbreaking…
Journalist
Press releases issued by press officers working for Universities were rare in the past. Only when a real and major breakthrough was accomplished would this happen. These days virtually any article accepted for publication passes the press office. And although these officers quickly realise that the presented outcome is of mediocre significance, they know that the bosses of the University want to see headlines in the press. And so mediocre output gets blown up to magnificent proportions and does indeed make the headlines.
Journalists that receive these press releases, in turn, need to fight for attention and add spice to what they read. And so the mediocre output suddenly becomes a massive breakthrough that will save millions of lives around the globe.
The result: Journalists continue to juggle with unmet promises.
Public
The broader public is confronted with headlines produced by journalists, supposedly reflecting the outcome of the researcher’s work. But it doesn’t need much insight to see that the above issues distort science communication, and badly so.
The question becomes: who is fooling who? Is it the scientist trying to publish in big journals to satisfy the hand that feeds him? Is it the funding organisation that wants success even if they don’t get it? Is it the University desperate for media attention? Or is it the journalist that wants to steal the show with gripping headlines?
The result: everyone involved continues to juggle with promises.
Today’s news
Take the latest piece of malaria research that grabbed the headlines around the world: A mosquito that no longer transmits malaria. Although the senior author of the article (Michael Riehle; University of Arizona) warned in the press release that the release of genetically engineered mosquitoes is at least a decade away, this line got conveniently forgotten in the numerous news articles that followed. Riehle maintained a healthy level of scientific integrity (and juggled his promises in the right way), but that’s not what made it into the headlines.
The BBC reported ‘Malaria-proof mosquito engineered’, and had forgotten about the fact that this had already been accomplished in 2002. Medline Plus (which claims ‘Trusted health information for you’) opened with ‘In what might someday be a major advance against one of the world's most devastating diseases’. From there it gets worse. ‘Genetically altered mosquito may spell end of malaria’, and then ‘Mosquito gene a step in malaria eradication’. And indeed, on TH!NK3 today, this work was hailed as 'One step closer to malaria control'.
Promises. Just like the book lying next to me...
Maybe, we have to audit or manage expectations especially in an issue that is so crucial and important.
Fabulous stuff!
You got to make a perfect overview of this quite complex topic. I think you’re right on all you stated about these three spheres. I experience it every single day, as a science reporter. Even in portuguese, check the website:
http://cienciahoje.uol.com.br/
More than ever, I will keep a watchful eye on all this and my headlines.
@Iris, that is it. As journalists, we have to balance our great expectations.
@Iris - promises is one thing, expectations another. Indeed, if expectations would be toned down, reporting could be more realistic and down to earth. Right now, I feel that things are more and more spiralling out of control…
@Luan - Thanks. This blog could have been 2-3 times longer, as there is much more to say on this matter. I did not even touch on the influence all this has on the MDGs. In essence, policy makers and governments are also juggling with promises. And constantly re-adjusting figures to get closer to reaching the MDGs…
There used to be a time that everyone always started a scientific paper with ‘Every year, some 500 million people are infected with malaria’. Suddenly, last year, WHO informed the world that 280 million people got infected. Juggling, juggling, juggling… from the journalist to WHO, it’s everywhere.
Luan,
Yes, and hopefully not be cynical
@Iris - Not sure if cynicism fits here. It is all about NICE (Needs, Interests, Concerns and Expectations) when it gets to producing and receiving news, regardless of the topic. Have you become cynical because of TH!NK3?
hi Bart,
No, me, definitely not. But some of my journalist colleagues are. It’s the reality.
@Iris - now that’s a great topic for a blog…why are they cynical, what made them become cynical, etc. Is it what they see, experience, the devastation, the hopelessness?
you said it Bart…Yes, it’s an interesting topic for the blog. Mmm…you just gave me an idea. Will write about it soon.
Bart - another cracking post. Thanks for continuing to highlight these issues!
All scientists should be trying to advance understanding in their field, which by definition means stepping into the unknown. Writing a grant which outlines the acquisition of unknown data is obviously ridiculous. In contrast keeping plans 100% achievable is little more than stamp collecting. Similarly there is a real problem with the time given to achieve real success. So someone on a 3 year grant may spend a large amount of time in the final year writing new grants rather than completing the currently funded grant. Longer grants would give a better return, and allow scientists to focus on bigger goals which require long-term commitments before a potential pay-off.
If I could play devils advocate though on your statement about publishing data that isn’t ‘great’. While this does produce a lot of perhaps inconsequential papers, to my mind this is better than it being repeated by someone else while the experiments have already been done and are simply languishing in a drawer somewhere. Collectively these small papers could be very important.
@Daniel - thanks for your comment.
Ridiculous or not, may funding bodies ask for plans up front before any work is done. Needless to say, once a proposal is funded, they mostly disappear out of the window. But then why go through all this administrative stuff and waste time and money?
Time to reach success: Well, the first research on malaria vaccines started in the 1960s, and still millions go into this research. I am not saying that this is wrong, it merely reflects the hope for the magic bullet. This then also gets into the field of lobbying. Lobbying is another key prerequisite to be successful in science these days.
On your last comment: I fully agree. I’d go one step further: There is not a single journal that publishes research that did not yield any significant results. This results in the same work being tried time and again in labs around the world, again with a huge waste of resources. This is another reason for having MalariaWorld, so that negative results can be communicated to the broader scientific public…
Superb article! I think there are two categories of scientists: Those that are AWARE that this ‘scientific research’ is all a game and play by the rules AND those who choose to remain in blissful ignorance and believe that they are going to save the millions of people in Africa or India ....Unfortunately, one is not better than the other, because what it all boils down to, is that it is all a GAME…
@Janneth - Thanks for liking the blog. I very much like your observation and categorization of scientists. What do you reckon, are there more ‘play by the rule’ scientists or ‘blissful ignorant’ ones?
Where would you place yourself? In a third category? Which is?
Really insightful written, about pressing problems.
@Daniel - thanks. Very interesting to note that scientists are very quiet…
Bart, this is a well written article on stuff researchers do not like to talk about, the politics of donor driven research and the unethical approach to administration matters.
One aspect I’d like to disagree with though, is on publishing any kind of research, even that which is not ‘groundbreaking’ or life altering. I think research is about finding out the unknown and once results come in, they may be positive or negative, depending on the aspect the researcher was hoping to get. Not publishing negative results, which could be a result of poor design and/or just negative results, means other reserchers make the same mistakes or waste resources carrying out the same kind of research.
I think all research with a sturdy design should be published, so that it’s left to the readers to determine and interpret the results; that way (healthy) critique thrives.
@Yvonne - thanks for your comment. Indeed, these are issues that scientists and donors alike do not like to discuss…
I agree with your views, and publishing (or at least notifying the scientific community) research that did not yield anything could save millions that could be used to actually control malaria in the real world…