ussr

374

Because the scientific productivity of the three academic

categories had not been documented, the quantity and quality ofresearch of a representative Italian faculty, the Bologna MedicalSchool (460 members), has been evaluated. Two objective measuresof scientific productivity-the number of refereed papers cited inthe Index Medicus and the sum of the impact scores of the journals inwhich papers were published were recorded over a period of 14years (1974-87) encompassing the 1980 law.The two measures gave similar results. The study was promoted

by the Italian Association of University Researchers (ANRU) andwas done by Dr R. D’Alessandro, Dr M. Marini, Dr R. Paradisi, DrF. Zappulla, among others. The names of the research workerswhose scientific output was studied may be had from Dr M. Marini

(Institute of Histology, School of Medicine, via Belmeloro 8, 40126Bologna, Italy). Full professors had the highest productivity scores,but no difference was found in scientific productivity betweenassociate professors and researchers during 1975-80 whereasresearchers scored better in the second period (1980-87).

Full professor Associate Researcher

Irulexofproductzvity it = 120) (n=159) (n=181)1975-80

Refereed papers 12-6(131) z4 (6 4) 5-3 (6-1)Impact score 10-3(183) 40(9-1) 3 3 (6 8)

1980-87

Refereed papers 170(19-4) 8-3(8-6) 10-7(100)Impact score 23-1 (40-2) 9-8 (16-9) 13 7 (20 7)

Results as mean (SD)

11 (9-2%) full professors, 29 (18-2%) associate professors, and 34(18-8%) researchers had no scientific production in the period1974-80. Full details are available in the December 1988

supplement to Bolletino dateneo. These figures are thought to berepresentative of most Italian faculties.

USSRTOP PSYCHIATRIST DENOUNCED

Dr Marat Vartanyan is already known in the West for his denialsthat psychiatrists have locked up dissidents in Soviet mental

hospitals. Less well known is his reputation inside the USSR, wherehe is director of the All-Union Research Centre for Mental Health,Moscow. Hitherto, Soviet psychiatrists have been too frightened tospeak out. Now the silence has been broken. One report appeared inthe West German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung onOct 14,1988. Six weeks later, on Nov 25,1988, Dr Viktor Gindilis*protested in an extraordinary open letter to the USSR Academy ofMedical Sciences that Vartanyan did not deserve the title of

academician, which the academy planned to bestow on him. Manyof the complaints were known to Western specialists from privateconversations with psychiatrists in the Soviet Union.Feb 18 was the planned date of departure of twenty US

psychiatrists and related experts on a two-week visit of inspection tothe USSR. The group will examine dissidents detained in or

recently released from mental hospitals and will visit mentalinstitutions selected at short notice. The Soviet authorities hope thatthe group’s report will rehabilitate Soviet psychiatry.Dr Gindilis makes several allegations. He writes:"I am the real author of almost all the publications and research

initiatives attributed to M. E. Vartanyan in the field of medicalgenetics."

"Although Vartanyan presents himself, when it suits him, as amedical geneticist ... when it comes to complex aspects of thecontemporary genetics of mental illness and molecular

neurogenetics, he is completely incompetent." He has, Gindiliscontinues, done no scientific experiments and has formulated notone original idea, and everything he attributes to himself is the fruitof other scientists, most of whom have suffered subsequently."Such was the pattern of his doctoral dissertation, which was mostlywritten for him by V. Faivishevsky, who had also done thepreliminary work for it, and who was later kicked out of theAcademy’s Institute of Psychiatry (where Vartanyan was an

*Dr V. M. Gindilis is head of the genetics laboratory at the Brain ResearchInstitute of All-Union Research Centre for Mental Health, USSR Academyof Science. His address is Zagorodnoe shosse 2, korp 2, Moscow M-152,USSR (tel no 126-57-36).

administrator)." This was the pattern, too, with his higher doctoraldissertation, contributed to by scientists in the pathophysiologylaboratory, says Gindilis, some of whom were forced to resign (eg,D. V. Lozovsky) or even emigrate. Vartanyan’s correspondingmembership of the Academy, the letter alleges, resulted from hispresenting as his own the work of Gindilis himself and his studentsand colleagues and of a group of clinical geneticists headed by 1. V.Shakhmatova-Pavlova. "In 1985 Vartanyan destroyed the uniquegroup of scientists I had built up."

Vartanyan’s wife, D. D. Orlovskaya, is director of the laboratoryof pathomorphology at the same institute. According to Gindilis thehead of that laboratory, V. Podymov, was forced out by Vartanyanin the early 1970s and his ideas began to be developed underVartanyan and Orlovskaya. "Talented researchers, such as Yu.Lashchilov, left the laboratory and those who did not go quietly (eg,Zh. V. Solovyova) were forced out."The criticisms are, the letter suggests, shared by many, including

Academician A. V. Snezhnevesky and Prof R. A. Nadsharov.Vartanyan was appointed as director of the centre in December,

1987. That decision "went against the wishes of the majority of thecentre’s staff And it ignored the fact that the Central Committee’sParty Disciplinary Committee had "confirmed that he had grosslyabused his official position and violated the norms of scientificethics".

In England Now

Mrs Bodgers fixed the student attached to the geriatric unit with agimlet eye that had lost nothing for being 91 years old. "Younglady", she snapped, "why are you asking me these ridiculousquestions? Do you think I am stupid?" I saw the girl write,"Uncooperative, probably senile", across the obligatory mental testquestionnaire that she had been trying in a pedantic and humourlessway to administer, before withdrawing with all the outragedhauteur that today’s young people manifest if they are crossed.My sympathies were all with Mrs Bodgers. To have someone sit

down by your bed and solemnly ask you the date, your birthday, theprime minister’s name, the sovereign’s name, and-the item thatwould spark rebellion in me for the very good reason that I wouldmake an unholy mess of it-serial sevens, seems to me downrightinsulting. It’s bad enough for those who know the answers, but forsomeone who is aware that her memory is failing to have it sopublicly displayed is wanton cruelty. My scientifically mindedcolleagues will say, "It is necessary to have a standardised format toenable us to quantify the degree of memory impairment andmeasure any changes". Is it? What does it prove? If someone candemonstrate to me that, say, not knowing the PM’s name means onecannot make a cup of tea, that a failure to do serial sevens correlateswith an inability to do baked beans on toast, that patients whocannot remember the name of the sovereign forget to wash, then Imight just be interested. But, so far, no one has done this.

I tried to talk to the student later, pointing out that, by chattingquietly with Mrs Bodgers, I had managed to elicit answers to all thegeneral knowledge questions and gain a wide overall idea of hermental ability without using the standard form. (I did not say that,in finding out the name of the prime minister, I accepted "ThatWoman!!" as a correct answer.) The girl was not impressed--afterall, I am only a psychiatrist-and dismissed my approach asnon-scientific. I decided not to go too deeply into the scientific basisof pencil and paper tests; had she known that, tested as a registrar onRaven’s matrices, I had an IQ which put me firmly in the

educationally subnormal bracket, it would merely have confirmedher obvious views about me. So I trotted out about making cups oftea as above, only to be told Mrs Bodgers was quite useless in thekitchen. How, I wondered, could the girl know? She had seen thereport of the occupational therapy (OT) assessment. I gave up; howcould I begin to explain to this self-assured child the differencebetween the ultramodern ceramic hob and built-in electric oven inthe OT kitchen and the old range on which Mrs Bodgers (and hermother before her) had cooked for a family? But I should have tried;in ten years time that girl might be my GP.