Science Progress Blog
- Biofuel Policy Recommendations in Science, Just Before Administration Unveils New Plan
- Science and Tech Policy Events This Week
- Cabinet-making Advice from the Association of American Universities
- Michigan’s Modest Ballot Proposal Gains Media Support
- Abrupt Climate Change
- Nano-what? Synthetic-who?
- Issue Pulse: Financial Rescue Impact on Science Funding Uncertain
- Storming the Lab
- Science and Tech Policy Events This Week
- Induced Progress
- Defining the Bush Administration Environmental Record
- HHS Rule Could Restrict Access to Contraception, Health Care…and Stem Cell Research
- Stem Cell Researcher Awarded MacArthur Fellowship
- Congress Looks to the Clean Air Act for Controlling GHGs
- The Most Important Assistant in American Science
Biofuel Policy Recommendations in Science, Just Before Administration Unveils New Plan
SOURCE: NREL
Prairie grass.
Writing at the Switchboard blog, Nathanael Greene is pleased with the conclusions of 23 scientists who co-authored the Policy Forum in Friday’s issue of Science, “Sustainable Biofuels Redux” (subscription). He quotes the clear line the authors take on feedstocks that compete with food supplies: “… [W]e know that grain-based biofuel cropping systems as currently managed cause environmental harm,” as well as their appreciation that current systems can get better: “[B]ecause grain-based ethanol will likely remain in the nation’s energy portfolio, it is important to understand that appropriate practices can soften its environmental impact.”
Greene quotes at length from the article’s conclusion and nods in agreement that strong policy action is necessary:
We cannot repeat enough the point that cellulosic biofuels can be good but only will be if we decide through our policies to require them to be good. Furthermore, we know enough to act now to position the industry in the right direction.
I think the GHG standards and sourcing safeguards in the RFS are major step in this direction, but I heartily agree with the authors that policies to promote broadly sustainable biofuels are not in place.
Last year’s energy bill updated the parameters of the Renewable Fuels Standard to stipulate that various categories of biofuels must meet certain greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and for most of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency has been at work the complex rule-making process for the legislation. We have more on the legislation and that process here and here.
But just today, the Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that tomorrow they will release a new plan for accelerating the development of the sustainable biofuels industry. The media advisory is short and does not address the RFS rulemaking, which of course is the purview of EPA, though the status of that process seems relevant.
The text of the release:
On Tuesday, October 7, 2008, Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Ed Schafer and Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Samuel W. Bodman will release the National Biofuels Action Plan, an interagency plan detailing the collaborative efforts to accelerate the development of a sustainable biofuels industry. The Cabinet Secretaries will announce additional news related to the biofuels industry, new biofuel technology and ethanol blending.
Science and Tech Policy Events This Week
AP
Here’s a roundup of some of the science and technology policy events happening around Washington, D.C. from October 6 to October 10. Things are light this week. Feel free to leave other events you know of in the comments.
Monday
Science and Society: Global Challenges Series, Merging Climate and Transportation Policy
American Association for the Advancement of Science
AAAS Headquarters, 1200 New York Ave., NW, Washington, D.C
6 p.m.
Tuesday
Environment, Conflict, and Peacebuilding: Sharing Lessons and Building Networks (Panel 610)
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Woodrow Wilson Center
11:30 a.m.
Friday
Impacts of Recent Climate Change: Current Responses and Future Projections for Wild Ecosystems
American Meteorological Society Environmental Science Seminar Series
Russell Senate Office Building, Room 253
10 a.m.
Cabinet-making Advice from the Association of American Universities
A couple of weeks ago, the Association of American Universities, a nonprofit representing 62 of the largest and most influential research institutions in the United States, released its policy recommendations for the next president. The recommendations straddle the sciences and the humanities, but the item at the top of the group’s list is the very same as the top recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences: elevate the role of the president’s science adviser and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to a cabinet-level position, and appoint a highly qualified person to that position quickly.
Chris Mooney explained in this week’s column, “All the President’s Scientists,” that speed and effectiveness matter, and that’s part of why the tone of the NAS recommendations has changed over the years:
The Bush administration did not appoint an influential, cabinet-level science adviser, and certainly did not appoint its senior science adviser promptly. It was, in fact, the slowest administration ever to fill the top 500 positions in government, according to the Brookings Institution, and left many science-related agencies (such as the Food and Drug Administration) leaderless for significant periods of time.
The message from the AAU seems clear: Appointing an effective adviser as “First Scientist” right away won’t just make federal scientists happy—it will help support the country’s entire research infrastructure.
Michigan’s Modest Ballot Proposal Gains Media Support
A few weeks ago, we wrote about a report by the Michigan Prospect that predicts significant economic gains to the Great Lakes State if it were to repeal its constitutional ban on stem cell research.
Today, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News both endorsed a new policy that will be on the ballot this November in Michigan, and, if passed, will allow significantly more stem cell research.
Michigan has the most restrictive anti-stem cell research laws in the nation, a tragedy which is compounded by the fact that Michigan has one of the most productive biotech R&D infrastructures of any state. Michigan is home to some of the nation’s most prestigious academic research universities and nonprofit institutes as well as 542 private life sciences companies that employ 31,777 workers.
The Detroit News interviewed Doug Engel, head of the cell and developmental biology department at the University of Michigan, about the current law. Engel lamented the fact that the law, which threatens Michigan’s scientists with criminal prosecution if they derive their own embryonic stem cells, has forced his colleagues to order stem cells from out of state, thereby slowing down research. One of his colleagues had to wait seven months for stem cell lines, a situation that Engel calls “not conducive to cutting-edge research.” A situation so non-conducive, in fact, that another of Engel’s colleagues—a top stem cell biologist—eventually left Michigan for California.
Perhaps the greatest irony about the current law is that its intention is to protect embryos, but instead of allowing for leftover embryos from IVF clinics to be used for research, the embryos are simply destroyed.
The proposed new law simply allows researchers to use leftover embryos from IVF clinics as sources of stem cells. The new law also has sensible provisions built into it that prohibit the buying and selling of embryos, as well as the creation of embryos specifically for research. This, of course, would still outlaw therapeutic cloning (or research cloning, otherwise known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT) as Michigan’s 1998 prohibition of both reproductive and therapeutic cloning would remain intact. The ballot initiative prohibits the derivation of stem cells from an embryo that has undergone cell division for 14 days or more, and also stipulates that proper informed consent must be obtained from the donors and that the embryos must otherwise not be suitable for implantation. For an interactive explanation of each of the ballot item’s provisions check out Cure Michigan’s website.
Both newspapers do make the concession that the law perhaps goes a tad to far by putting a blanket ban on future regulations. However, they both acknowledge that the legislature could still revise the state Constitution in the future if needed.
Altogether, this is a modest ballot proposal that will repeal the most extreme and counterproductive provision of Michigan’s Constitution.
Abrupt Climate Change
(NASA/GSFC)
Comparison of Minimum Sea Ice between 2005 and 2007. California outline shown for comparison. Modified from NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli.
In the 2004 disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, tidal waves the size of skyscrapers hurtle toward New York City. This fantastic envisioning of abrupt climate change bears no resemblance to what could happen in reality, but abrupt climate change could potentially raise sea levels by meters in the span of a century. One of the most well-studied examples of extreme climate change occurred 12,800 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, in an event known as the Younger Dryas. During this time temperatures warmed and the glaciers receded, but scientists speculate that the thermohaline circulation, or THC, the ocean current which transports warm and cool water, shut down, causing a mini, 1,200-year-long ice age. The Younger Dryas ended just as abruptly as it began, with temperatures rising 10°C in just 10 years.
So abrupt climate changes happen. To better understand these potential threats to humanity, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research, or OBER, launched the Investigation of the Magnitudes and Probabilities of Abrupt Climate Transitions program.
Science Daily reports on the laboratories across the nation (Argonne, Los Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, and Pacific Northwest) which will work with IMPACT to develop the computer models necessary to understand this complex phenomenon. OBER launched the program through its Climate Change Prediction Program. IMPACTS will study four possible causes of abrupt climate change:
- instability among marine ice sheets, particularly the West Antarctic ice sheet
- positive feedback mechanisms in subarctic forests and arctic ecosystems, leading to rapid methane release or large-scale changes in the surface energy balance
- destabilization of methane hydrates (vast deposits of methane gas caged in water ice), particularly in the Arctic Ocean
- feedback between the biosphere and atmosphere that could lead to megadroughts in North America, perhaps even greater than the 1930s Dust Bowl.
Each of these “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” could dramatically change the globe, with one potential impact being ocean level rise 13 to 20 feet. The computer model will help predict environmental shifts and provide information to scientists, government, and business leaders on strategies to prepare for or prevent extreme changes.
One significant a fear is that slowly rising temperatures could warm the methane-rich permafrost, releasing the greenhouse gas, which is has heat-trapping properties 26 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in the short term. As the permafrost melts, the organic material trapped in its warming soil will begin to decompose and release its stored methane and carbon, rapidly increasing temperatures and melting more permafrost, creating a feedback loop.
But a two-week-old study in Science suggests that the ancient permafrost may be more resilient to rising temperatures than previously thought. The study reports that a 700,000 year-old chunk of ground ice, buried in the Yukon permafrost, has survived some of warmest periods of the earth’s history. Scientists believed everything would have melted 120,000 years ago, but this piece of ice questions that theory.
This study shows the complicated nature of global climate modeling. As Jeremy Jacquot wrote in Science Progress, scientists didn’t expect the Arctic ice cap to melt as quickly as it has, with some new estimates predicting it will be gone by 2013.
The point being that climate scientists need the resources to study these potentially disastrous consequences of global warming before the “day after tomorrow” becomes today.
Nano-what? Synthetic-who?
Peter D. Hart Research Associates
One of the slides from the President of Peter D. Hart Research Associates Geoffrey Garin’s presentation.
Some new products built on advances in nanotechnology improving people’s quality of life. There are anti-bacterial wound dressings that use nanoscale silver; there’s a nanoscale dry powder that can neutralize gas and liquid toxins in chemical spills; and batteries manufactured with nanoscale materials can deliver more power more quickly with less heat. In 2007 the federal government provided $1.3 billion in funding for research on nanotechnology through the National Nanotechnology Initiative.
So how come nobody’s ever heard of these wonderful new advancements? A new report release yesterday by the Wilson Center’s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies and Peter D. Hart Research reveals that almost half of U.S. adults have heard nothing about nanotechnology, and nearly 9 in 10 Americans say they have heard just a little or nothing at all about the emerging field of synthetic biology. The report, “The American Public’s Awareness Of And Perceptions About Potential Risks and Benefits of Nanotechnology & Synthetic Biology,” also reveals that no major change has occurred in the U.S. public’s awareness since 2004, when Hart Research conducted the first poll on the topic on behalf of the PEN. Geoffery Garin, president of Peter D. Hart Research Associates, gave a presentation yesterday showing that almost 50 percent of Americans aren’t even sure if nanotechnology is worth the risk.
In early September on Science Progress, Arthur Caplan made six recommendations for the new administration’s science policy, including developing nanotechnology to clean water and developing synthetic biology to “fight diseases, make synthetic fuels, eat pollutants, clean the oceans and our arteries.” With the potential for nanotech and synbio to make such a profound impact on society, the government and press should make a concerted effort to inform the public of these technologies. But as Rick Weiss has argued, there’s still a significant amount of investigation and regulation that needs to happen for certain nano applications, chief among them drug development.
“Early in the administration of the next president, scientists are expected to take the next major step toward the creation of synthetic forms of life. Yet the results from the first U.S. telephone poll about synthetic biology show that most adults have heard just a little or nothing at all about it,” said Director David Rejeski, in a PEN news release.
Issue Pulse: Financial Rescue Impact on Science Funding Uncertain
If Congress resumes Thursday and passes a financial rescue plan, it will have a significant impact on discretionary spending next year. Yesterday, Science and National Geographic both reported on the potential effect a budget crunch will have on federal science funding.
The most relevant immediate factor is the fact that the continuing resolution passed by Congress over the weekend will hold all federal funding at current levels until March of next year. “Most federal programs will continue to operate at or below 2008 funding levels for several months into the new fiscal year,” explain the AAAS budget and policy number crunchers.
National Geographic talked with several science policy experts to get a bead on the factors in play. Here’s a sampling of what they said:
- “The problem is that if the discretionary budget shrinks, then to keep science whole something else has to shrink even more,” said John Marburger, science adviser to President Bush and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
- NG points out there there simply might not be enough money to go around. “The biggest factor is what’s happening with overall domestic spending,” according to David Goldston, former staff director of the House Science and Technology Committee.
- Kevin Finneran, editor of Issues in Science and Technology suggested this could be more bad news for the plight of yong researchers: “If lack of funding drives our most promising young people away from careers in research, the long-term damage to science could be significant.”
- But let’s not forget that U.S. science is a juggernaut. “It’s not particularly debatable that the U.S. has the preeminent [research and development] enterprise in the globe. I think we start from a place of relative health,” said Daniel Sarewitz, co-director of Arizona State University’s Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes.
While it’s just not possible yet to know exactly what a massive financial package would do to science funding, restoring the health of the economy is critical. Unless we solve the unfolding financial crisis, there won’t be enough money to fund much of anything. Readers interested that issue should check out the proposals on CAP’s homepage.
More on funding from Science Progress:
Storming the Lab
Corpus Callosum/NOAA
The Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Biocontainment BSL-4 Lab at the University of Texas Medical Branch suffered minimal damage during Hurricane Ike.
The impact of Hurricane Ike on the research labs in the storm’s path is generating a small number of headlines. At the end of last week, Science reported on the state of things at the University of Texas Medical Branch:
The UTMB campus stands on the eastern portion of the island, behind the seawall the city constructed after a hurricane devastated the town in 1900. The wall held during Ike, sparing the campus much of the destruction experienced across the rest of Galveston, where whole neighborhoods washed away. Overall, Hurricane Ike killed 50 people in the Gulf Coast and left millions more without power for a week. But the Galveston National Laboratory, a $167 million facility designed for the study of biohazards, suffered minimal damage, says the lab’s associate director, James LeDuc. UTMB’s biosafety level 4 lab, which holds samples of microbes such as anthrax and plague bacteria, also emerged unscathed. Elsewhere on the island, Texas A&M University’s Galveston research facilities suffered virtually no damage, says campus CEO R. Bowen Loftin.
Before the storm, the bloggers at Effect Measure expressed severe skepticism about the logic of locating a lab with such deadly pathogens on a barrier island. Another ScienceBlogger at Corpus Callosum points out that while the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Biocontainment BSL-4 Lab was built to resist 140-mile-an-hour winds, other buildings in Galvenston were not. Storm damage elsewhere lead to a buildup of environmental hazards like “mud, human waste, asbestos, lead and gasoline,” that posed a severe risk to health of the city.
While the UTMB lab is secure, the campus has not reopened, and scientists, like so many other Galveston residents, cannot yet return to work.
Science and Tech Policy Events This Week
Here’s a roundup of some of the science and technology policy events happening around Washington, D.C. from September 29 to
October 3.
Tuesday
The Technology Imperative and The Role of Technology Policy In Driving Economic Growth
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
1250 Eye Street, NW, Suite 200, Room 2
9 a.m.
Launch of World Watch Magazine’s Population Issue
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
5th Floor Conference Room, Ronald Reagan Building: 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
3 p.m.
Wednesday
Hans Landsberg Memorial Lecture
Resources for the Future
First Floor Conference Center 1616 P Street NW
12:30pm
Thursday
Understanding Our Digital Quality of Life
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Thomas Jefferson Building, Room LJ 162
1 p.m.
Induced Progress
Jeff Miller/University of Wisconsin-Madison
When James Thomson’s and Shinya Yamanaka’s research teams published their ground-breaking papers last year on induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, one of the major hurdles to clinical application was the propensity of the cells to cause cancer. In these original methods, genetic factors inserted into somatic cells by way of retroviruses induced both pluripotency and caused tumors.
Now, scientists from Harvard University have successfully introduced the pluripotency-inducing genes into mouse somatic cells by way of adenoviruses, which are less harmful than retroviruses because they do not permanently integrate the genes into the cell’s DNA. The study detailing the work was published online yesterday on the website of Science. In its story on the discovery, the The Washington Post quotes Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, who explains, “The adenovirus will infect the cells but then will clear themselves from the cells. After a few cell divisions there are no traces of the virus in the cell. You can’t tell the virus was ever there.” However, the Post also quotes Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute, who expressed doubts about the method, saying, “It’s still very inefficient.”
Indeed, according to the article in Science, the efficiency was “extremely low, ranging from less that 0.0001 to 0.001%,” and that “[t]his frequency is lower than that obtained with integrating viruses (~0.01 to 0.1%) and is probably due to the fact that many cells do not maintain viral expression long enough to trigger entry into a state sustained by endogenous pluripotency factors.”
In order to increase the efficiency of this method of inducing adult cells to become pluripotent, scientists may need to supplement the genes with chemical compounds, as has been done with retroviral reprogramming. At the end of the article in Science, author Konrad Hochedlinger and his research team acknowledge, “Before translating these observations into a therapeutic setting, however, it will be important to asses if human iPS cells generated without viral integration are indeed as potent as human ES cells.”
And that’s one more reason that human embryonic stem cells remain the gold standard of pluripotency, and will still be critical to this ongoing research in regenerative medicine, despite conservative naysayers.
Defining the Bush Administration Environmental Record
This afternoon, the Senate Environment and Public Works committee will hold a hearing examining the Bush administration’s environmental record. Our Center for American Progress colleagues took a hard look at the president’s legacy on this issue earlier this year. Their conclusion? “Seven Years of Failure: Bush gets an F for the Earth.” While the interactive timeline they prepared only runs through May 2008, you still get a pretty clear picture:
(Use the scroll bar at the bottom of the timeline to scan backwards in time all the way to the opening days of the Bush administration’s environmental failures in 2001. Click on the photos accompanying the events for more information.)
UPDATE: This seemed apropos:
(From the Cartoonist Group.)
HHS Rule Could Restrict Access to Contraception, Health Care…and Stem Cell Research
iStockphoto
In the final year of the Bush administration, social conservatives have successfully pressured the Department of Health and Human Services to propose a rule that would ostensibly protect health care workers who object to performing abortion and sterilization procedures. The catch is that there are already federal laws in place that do just that. The regulation would instead open the door to denying patients access to all sorts of potentially controversial health care services. (For a look at an earlier draft of this rule, see Jessica Arons’s Science Progress article, “Contraception is the New Abortion.”)
The rule could have a variety of sweeping effects. Among them, it could:
- Potentially allow providers to deny patients access to contraception, end-of-life care, and fertility treatments, among other forms of treatment
- Allow providers to withhold information essential to informed consent and to refuse to provide referrals for patients
- Extend beyond doctors and nurses to virtually anyone in the health care system, including ambulance drivers, receptionists, claims adjusters, and custodians.
But that’s not all. The rule is indeed written so broadly that it might also protect individuals who refuse to assist with research to which they object, which could include work on stem cells funded by National Institutes of Health. The proposed rule includes this language:
Entities to whom this subsection 88.4(d) applies shall not require any individual to perform or assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity funded by the Department if such service or activity would be contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions.
The potential for interpretations of “health service program” include the effects mentioned above, but the implications of the “research activity” have been less-discussed. Needless to say, the rule is unnecessary and poorly crafted from either perspective.
The deadline for public comments is this tomorrow, Thursday, September 25th, and they can be submitted to regulations.gov or via email to consciencecomment@hhs.gov. Let the HHS know that this is one regulation health care workers and scientists alike can do without.
Stem Cell Researcher Awarded MacArthur Fellowship
The MacArthur Foundation today announced its annual list of 25 fellows. Recipients of the award get $500,000 to spend over the next five years with no strings attached. Many of the fellows are distinguished scientists working in fields as diverse as plant genetics, astrophysics, and epidemiology.
One neuroscientist, Sally Temple, works extensively with stem cells. Temple is the scientific director of the New York Neural Stem Cell Institute and her work “traces the mechanisms by which embryonic progenitor cells divide into highly specialized neurons and support cells,” according to the foundation. She describes the work in her own words in this video:
Interestingly, her studies suggest that:
[T]he limited success to date of embryonic stem cell transplants to repair neural damage could be due to introduction of stem cells at the wrong stage of development; it may be that progenitor cells further along in their differentiation will prove more effective.
As MacArthur fellowships are awarded based on recommendations from peers, this sends a clear signal that Temple’s line of research is groundbreaking work.
Today in Madison, Wisconsin, stem cell researchers and advocates are discussing the fast-expanding field at the fourth World Stem Cell Summit. To learn more about the state of policymaking and research, we spoke with the co-chairs in a roundtable discussion.
A half million dollars will help Temple’s research, but to allow all Americans to reap the benefits of stem cell research, the federal government needs to expand access to funding and resources.
Congress Looks to the Clean Air Act for Controlling GHGs
flick.com/jpmatth
No one is expecting an executive order mandating federal regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act between now and January, but it is promising to have the Senate Committee on Environmental and Policy Works addressing the issue this morning. Speakers at the hearing include Jason Burnett, former associate deputy administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, who resigned this summer after disputes over the EPA’s inaction following the Supreme Court’s decision that the agency must regulate CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Also speaking will be Bill Kovacs, vice president of Environment, Technology and Regulatory Affairs under the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who said in a recent report that regulating CO2 under the Act would overburden the EPA.
Chris Mooney wrote previously here at Science Progress that the EPA has been under extreme pressure to address global warming, but under the influence of the Bush administration, it has side-stepped (and even back-tracked) on the issue. The EPA has refused to regulate greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act, a stance which has led to scandals and lawsuits.
With frustration growing among some states, attorneys general are directly suing companies that emit greenhouse gases, such as Exxon Mobil and electric power plants. Mooney, who covered this simmering issue in a column entitled “The Coming Global Warming ‘Scopes’ Trial,” said the attorneys are blaming climate change on these companies, using scientific evidence to show the relationship between emissions and a shifting environment. And with last year’s Massachusetts vs. EPA case giving climate change advocates legal standing, courts must now analyze these claims. The lawsuits against carbon emitters may portend an emerging trend in science-based litigation similar to the suits brought against big tobacco.
The Most Important Assistant in American Science
John Marburger has an impressive title: science adviser to the president and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. But his predecessors had a slightly different title: assistant to the president, the highest rank of staffers within the Executive Office of the President. Much has been made of President Bush’s decision to appoint a science adviser to a diminished post, but the move resonated with the administration’s repeated maneuvers to downplay, disregard, or launch all-out assaults on science over the course of the past eight years.
But on the eve of a new administration, it’s time to look forward and think about the scientists who will advise the next president. The National Academies have just weighed in with their take on the issue, offering a report detailing the most critical presidential science appointments in the executive branch and ways to streamline the process of getting new hires into their posts. Their first recommendation, however, is to hire the top science adviser at the level of assistant to the president:
White House leadership in science and technology requires three steps. Immediately after the election, the president-elect should identify his candidate for the position of Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST). This individual will provide advice, identify and recruit other science and technology presidential appointees. After inauguration, the President should promptly both appoint this person as APST and nominate him or her as the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The director position should be cabinet-level, with an office in the Old Executive Office Building.
Many of the most pressing matters of the new administration will require forthright scientific advice, and only through an assistant to the president who can participate in cabinet-level discussions and coordinate with other senior staffers in economic, domestic, national security, and energy policy will the next commander in chief get the advice that he needs. NAS is not the first group to argue that the science adviser post must be elevated back to the assistant level.
Moreover, NAS recommends that the president not dawdle on the matter of the thousands of other appointments across the administration. That means getting to work well in advance. Like today.
Who do readers think the next president should appoint as the top science adviser?
Science and Tech Policy Events This Week
Here’s a roundup of some of the science and technology policy events happening around Washington, D.C. from September 21 to September 27.
Tuesday
Digital Television Transition
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
253 Russell Senate Office Building
2:30 p.m.
Regulation of Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
406 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10 a.m.
Reducing the Undercount in the 2010 Census
Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security Subcommittee
342 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:30 a.m.
Wednesday
Hazardous Substance Release Reporting
House Energy and Commerce Committee, Environment and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee
2123 Rayburn House Office Building
10 a.m.
Bush Administration Environmental Record
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
406 Dirksen Senate Office Building
2:30 p.m.
Thursday
Getting the Most Out of a Career Fair
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The auditorium at AAAS Headquarters, 1200 New York Ave, NW.
8 a.m.
Responding to Climate Change: A Role for Ecosystems
Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
Room 3111, Smithsonian Institution Ripley Center
9:30 a.m.
Energy’s National Labs Security
House Energy and Commerce Committee, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee
2123 Rayburn House Office Building
10 a.m.
Broadband Providers and Consumer Privacy
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
253 Russell Senate Office Building
10 a.m.
“The Carbon Age: From Crisis to Stability”
Carnegie Institute for Science
Carnegie Institution, 1530 P Street, NW
6:30 p.m.
Michigan’s Costly Biotech Policy
In addition to a stumbling automotive industry, Michigan is home to some of the most restrictive regulations on stem cell research in the country. A new report from the Michigan Prospect calculates the scale of the negative economic impact of a hobbled biotech industry on the state.
Allen C. Goodman and Sam Berger explain the policy landscape in stark terms:
Michigan law effectively bans critical components of embryonic stem cell research that leading scientists believe can result in cures and treatments. Leftover embryos from fertility clinics cannot be used for medical research, although those leftover embryos can be thrown away as medical waste. While 45 other states allow the research that is illegal in Michigan and many also provide funding for that research, Michigan – along with Arkansas, Louisiana, South Dakota and North Dakota – severely restricts this important work.
They approach the economic benefits of stem cell research from several angles, arriving with these estimates for how stem cell research can grow the Michigan economy:
- 770,000: the potential number of patients who could benefit from this research, including patients suffering from diabetes, Alzheimer’s, spinal injuries, and ALS
- $80 million: cost savings on treatments for these conditions and other conditions, including stroke conditions and heart disease
- $38,500,000: potential Medicaid cost savings per year with a reduction of caregiving expenses of 0.5 percent
- 797: new and induced jobs in biotech with a commensurate payroll increase of $51 million per year
- $28 million: value of productivity gains per year from a 2 percent reduction in absenteeism through improved health and a reduction in death from treatable diseases
Get the full report .pdf here. The distribution of inequitable stem cell policies means that some states will see their biotech industries fall behind, and that’s all the more reason for the next administration to adopted a new national policy and that enables stem cell research to benefit all citizens, directly through treatments, or by way of a growing regional economy.
Medicare-Funded Gene Test Could Propel Personalized Medicine Research
Our guest blogger is Michael Peroski, an undergraduate majoring in biochemistry and philosophy at Allegheny College and a former bioethics intern with CAP.
About two million patients take warfarin, or coumadin, each year to prevent blood clotting during medical procedures. But thousands of these patients experience bleeding complications due to inappropriate dosing of the blood thinner, and many die. From August 4th through September 3rd this year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the Department of Health and Human Services invited public commentary on whether Medicare should fund genetic tests to determine a patient’s warfarin response. Genetics, weight, sex, and age factors determine roughly 45-60 percent of the variance in response to warfarin, so these tests could prevent many adverse events. This possible change in policy might save thousands of lives and highlights the need for a more comprehensive approach to the field of personalized medicine.
Determining the appropriate amount of warfarin to administer to a patient is very difficult for physicians because there is a wide variance in response to the medication. The Food and Drug Administration approved a genetic test last year that allows physicians to better gauge how much warfarin to administer by checking two genes. Although the cost of these tests has dropped, the current price is approximately $500, which prohibits many seniors from benefiting from the best available care.
Some research indicates that using this genetic test might result in savings for the healthcare system. For example, Genelex reports, “cost effectiveness will be achieved if 33-47 percent of the anticipated number of bleeding events are avoided.” Doctor Raymond Woosley of the Critical Path Institute told U.S. News and World Report that “this test can save $1.1 billion in health-care costs and 18,000 lives a year.” There are methods for checking how a patient responds to warfarin, but as Wired explained, “In a perfect world, physicians would use both [the genetic tests and handheld devices like the Roche CoaguChek system that allow physicians to constantly monitor a patient’s blood] to aid in their decisions.”
If DHHS approves Medicare to fund this test, it could provide a push for the developing industry of pharmacogenomics. Moreover, this potential application of personalized medicine offers an alternative to conventional trail-and-error techniques by allowing physicians to tailor care to an individual’s unique clinical, genetic, and environmental information. This might well be the next medical frontier, but the field itself is in need of help due to genetic data that may not be ready for clinical application. In a recent Science Progress article discussing genomics, bioinformatics, and proteomics, Arthur Caplan explained:
This rapidly growing sector is riding an ill-grounded wave of hype that makes weak, next-to-useless correlations between gene markers and disease states without really having much idea what to tell its customers to do about the risk information that testing companies find.
To unleash the full potential of pharmacogenomics, the FDA and DHHS will need to make sure that the useful products get to the patients who need it and that the snake oil salesmen do not discredit the whole industry.
Sensor Technology Protects New Minneapolis Bridge
Early this morning, the new Minneapolis bridge on interstate 35W opened. From opposite directions, two fleets of emergency responders led motorists in a symbolic drive across the Mississippi. But what you can’t see in this CNN video is the network of electronic sensors that will monitor the bridge, allowing engineers to detect damage from future wear and prevent catastrophes like the bridge’s collapse that killed 13 people and injured 145 last August.
CNN reports: “Within the concrete of the new bridge are embedded 323 sensors that will generate a record of how it handles the stresses and strains of traffic and Minnesota’s harsh climate. The data will help engineers maintain the bridge and advance the art of bridge design.”
Reece Rushing covered the promise of monitoring technology earlier this year on Science Progress in a piece on “Catching Crumbling Infrastructure.” He warned:
Before it collapsed, the Minneapolis bridge was one of more than 70,000 bridges nationwide declared by the Department of Transportation to be structurally deficient. One in three urban bridges fall into this category.
Replicating the design and monitoring elements that now protect the I-35W bridge will pave the way to a safer infrastructure for the entire country.
Bon Appetite: FDA Proposal on Genetically Engineered Animals Opens for Comment
For those of you who still cannot stomach the decision earlier this year by the Food and Drug Administration to allow the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals, hurry up and swallow, because the next course is on its way.
Today the FDA released its long-awaited—and in some quarters, long feared—proposed new rules for marketing foods from animals that have been genetically engineered to have particular traits.
Among the gene-altered animals that could come through the pipeline first are salmon endowed with extra growth hormone genes, to make them grow faster. Pigs with bacterial genes that make their manure less environmentally damaging. And cattle with genes that help them fight disease or, a little further down the road, genes for omega-3 fatty acids, which could make filet mignon as healthful as a fillet of trout.
AP/Will Kincaid
One possibility for engineered animals: pigs with bacterial genes that make their manure less environmentally damaging.
The FDA proposal, which is open for public comment for the next 60 days, is sure to raise lots of consumer interest. Thousands weighed in on the agency’s clone ruling, with many expressing disgust over the idea of scarfing down clone-burgers. So wary of clones are our foreign trading partners that the Agriculture Department has asked U.S. farmers to hold off sending their clonal critters to market until the rest of the world gets over its jitters, even though the FDA has declared them safe.
Back then, the FDA and the biotech industry made a big deal about the fact that clones were “just” clones and are not genetically manipulated per se. They are merely conceived in an unusual way that involves just one parent instead of two, we were reminded, which produces an individual genetically identical to that parent. If the government were ever to allow gene-altered animals into the food supply, officials reassured the public, the requirements for approval would be even more stringent than they were for clones.
Well, those rules are out today, with ancillary information from the FDA, and they make for an interesting read.
The good news is that the agency has decided to regulate gene-altered animals under the provisions of its “New Animal Drug” rules rather than through, say, its conventional food safety provisions. That’s good because novel foods for the most part can simply be introduced into the food supply without any restrictions, and enforcement by FDA does not kick in unless something goes wrong, like a lot of people dropping dead. By contrast, under the new animal drug provisions, each new kind of animal produced through genetic engineering will have to get approval from the FDA before it is commercialized. That’s the appropriate approach to something as biologically complex and emotionally charged as gene-altered animal products for the dinner table.
The bad news is that the process of getting such stuff approved is, as is the case with new drugs, extremely secretive. In fact, it would be against the law for the FDA (without permission from the affected company) to reveal that it has even received an application for a new gene-altered food animal until it approves that animal for sale in grocery stores. And once it has given its approval, there is virtually no recourse available to the public if people are not happy with that decision.
There are lots of reasons why the public may want to weigh in on these approvals. Concerns about the welfare of engineered animals. Environmental concerns (what happens when some of those genetically enhanced salmon escape their offshore cages and mate with wild salmon?). Concerns about subtle changes in nutritional values or even economic or ethical issues that the FDA is not really authorized to consider.
In interviews yesterday, FDA and biotech officials made a pretty convincing case that the agency is going to be looking very closely at these applications. The safety of consumers and the welfare of the animals themselves are their twin No. 1 priorities, they said. They also said they intend to make the process as public under the rules as possible, at least at first, to reassure consumers that their interests are being properly handled.
As always, the devils will be in the details: Just how much data the agency demands. How well it coordinates with the USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency, which will share responsibilities for many of the issues raised by engineered animals. But the first test will be how the agency responds to public comments over the next two months. Will it take the time to absorb them, respond to them thoughtfully in a public document, and integrate the best suggestions into a final version of the guidance? Or will it, as some agency-watchers suspect, finalize the proposed guidance very quickly after the 60 days are up, adding it to the bureaucratic bolus being force fed through the Washington policy machine in the waning days of the Bush administration?
Undue delay would be wrong. The nation and the world has been worse off, not better, for lack of guidance on how this next generation of animals is going to be regulated. And importantly, this is about more than just food. Engineered animals are also being made that produce important medicines in their blood, milk, and urine. Others may someday grow organs suitable for transplantation into people. Some animals being made or on various drawing boards are just capricious or quaint, such as the pet fish that glow in the dark and the cats that briefly were being produced under the (questionable) claim that they would not trigger allergies.
There is a world of biological manipulation to be had out there, and while some of it will be offensive a lot of it will be for the better. But the process is important. The FDA has to prove it is really listening, and show in its first few application reviews that it cares about the public interest and the animals themselves as much as it cares about the companies that hope to profit from these living and breathing products.