TABLE OF CONTENTS2010/08/31 GUARDIAN Blog: Guardian science blogs: We aim to entertain, enrage and inform .................................................................................................................................... 2 2010/08/31 GUARDIAN Blog: Is science teaching undermined by religious instruction in faith schools? ......................................................................................................................... 5 2010/08/31 GUARDIAN Blog: MMR the vaccine damage myth that will not die ................. 7 2010/08/31 GUARDIAN Blog: MMR: The zombie controversy that still lurches on ................ 9 2010/09/01 Girl, Interrupting: On women in science .......................................................... 16 2010/09/01 In Verba: Public science, in French ................................................................... 19 2010/09/01 GUARDIAN Blog: Sex education, STIs and politicians make a toxic combination ............................................................................................................................................. 20 2010/09/01 GUARDIAN Blog: The blue revolution at BBC Science ....................................... 23 2010/09/01 Nature: World view: Politicize me .................................................................... 26 2010/09/01 GUARDIAN Blog: Supersymmetry - the end of the line? .................................. 28 2010/09/01 GUARDIAN Blog FESTIVAL: Psychedelic drugs return as potential treatments for mental illness ....................................................................................................................... 30 2010/09/02 GUARDIAN News: Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God ........... 33 2010/09/02 GUARDIAN Blog FESTIVAL: The Mosasaur's kinky tail ....................................... 34 2010/09/02 TELEGRAPH: Science funding cuts risk hi-tech company exodus ...................... 37 2010/09/02-05 SOLO10 Tweet Transcript ............................................................................ 38#soloconf Transcript from September 2 to September 4, 2010 ................................................................ 124

2010/09/03 Alice Bell Blog: Taking science journalism upstream ................................... 129 BMG Blog: Science online London 2010 ............................................................................ 1412010/09/03 Science online London 2010 day 1 ..................................................................................... 141 2010/09/04 Science online London day 2 .............................................................................................. 142 2010/09/05 Science online London 2010 a (my?) summary .................................................................. 143

2010/09/04 ONE MAN AND HIS BLOG: Science Online: Bloggers, Commenters and the Reputation Game ............................................................................................................... 145 2010/09/04 Not Exactly Rocket Science: Rebooting Science Journalism 2: Rebooting Harder ........................................................................................................................................... 146 2010/09/04 Not Exactly Rocket Science: Engaging people online Science Online 2010 .. 146 2010/09/04 A Man and his Blog: Science Online: Cultures Clash over Infographics ........... 147 2010/09/04 AoB Blog Pat Heslop-Harrison: Dissemination and Science On-line #solo10 .. 149 2010/09/04 Alice Bell Blog: Scientists and the vote ........................................................... 151 2010/09/05 Confessions of a (former) Lab Rat: On Web 2.0 .............................................. 156 2010/09/05 UoL Library Blog: Katie Fraser: Science Online ............................................... 159 2010/09/05 Only in it for the gold: The Role of Scientists and of Scientific Authority ........ 161 2010/09/05 STAGES OF SUCCESSION: Wild Haired Scientists Online ................................. 163 2010/09/06 Guardian Blog Martin: How not to pass a homeopathy exam ........................ 164 2010/09/06 Guardian science blog: Peer review is no picnic ............................................. 167 2010/09/07 New Statesman: Will this picture come back to haunt Nick Clegg? ................ 175 2010/09/07 Washington Post: In Europe, science collides with the bottom line ............... 176 2010/09/07 Guardian Blog Evan: Labour leadership candidates leave scientists in the dark ........................................................................................................................................... 178 2010/09/07 Guardian Science Blog: Science sidelined in the government-PR-media frenzy ........................................................................................................................................... 180 2010/09/07 Guardian Science Blog Butterworth: Peter Higgs, UCL and the Right Honorable William Waldegrave ........................................................................................................... 1830|Page VOLUME 9

2010/09/07 I am scientist get me out of here: Read about our session at Science Online conference ......................................................................................................................... 184 2010/09/07 Guardian Science Blogs: You too can be a medical* practitioner ................... 190

1|Page VOLUME 9

2010/08/31 GUARDIAN BLOG: GUARDIANSCIENCE BLOGS:

WE AIM TO ENTERTAIN, ENRAGEAND INFORM

Alok Jha introduces the new Guardian science blogs network, and our science blogging festival

Our new blogs will cover particle physics, skepticism, evolution, politics and much more. Photograph: Getty It's nearly the end of summer holidays, and there are plans afoot in the blogosphere. You would not know it from general media coverage but, on the web, science is alive with remarkable debate. According to the Pew Research Centre, science accounts for 10% of all stories on blogs but only 1% of the stories in mainstream media coveage. (The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at a year's news coverage starting from January 2009.) On the web, thousands of scientists, journalists, hobbyists and numerous other interested folk write about and create lively discussions aroundpalaeontology, astronomy, viruses and other bugs, chemistry,pharmaceuticals, evolutionary biology, extraterrestrial life or bad science. For regular swimmers in this fast-flowing river of words, it can be a rewarding (and sometimes maddening) experience. For the uninitiated, it can be overwhelming. The Guardian's science blogs network is an attempt to bring some of the expertise and these discussions to our readers. Our four bloggers will bring you their untrammeled thoughts on the the latest in evolution and ecology, politics and campaigns, skepticism (with a dollop of righteous anger) and particle physics (I'll let them make their own introductions). Our fifth blog will hopefully become a window onto just some of the discussions going on elsewhere. It will also host the Guardian's first ever science blog festival - a celebration of the best writing on the web. Every day, a new blogger will take the reins and we hope it will give you a glimpse of the gems out there. If you're a newbie, we hope the blog festival will give you dozens of new places to start reading about science. And if you're a seasoned blog follower, we hope you'll find something entertaining or enraging.

2|Page VOLUME 9

We start tomorrow with the supremely thoughtful Mo Costandi ofNeurophilosophy. You can also look forward to posts from Ed Yong,Brian Switek, Jenny Rohn, Deborah Blum, Dorothy Bishop and Vaughan Bell among many others. In his Hugh Cudlipp lecture in January, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger discussed the changing relationship between writers (amateur and professional) and readers. We are edging away from the binary sterility of the debate between mainstream media and new forms which were supposed to replace us. We feel as if we are edging towards a new world in which we bring important things to the table editing; reporting; areas of expertise; access; a title, or brand, that people trust; ethical professional standards and an extremely large community of readers. The members of that community could not hope to aspire to anything like that audience or reach on their own; they bring us a rich diversity, specialist expertise and on the ground reporting that we couldn't possibly hope to achieve without including them in what we do. There is a mutualised interest here. We are reaching towards the idea of a mutualised news organisation. We're starting our own path towards mutualisation with some baby steps. We will probably make lots of mistakes (and we know you'll point them out). Where we end up will depend as much on you as it does on us.Comments in chronological order (Total 17 comments)

AdamRutherford 31 August 2010 1:12PM Nice image to show the bleeding edge of technology dude. What is that, a Dragon 32?

AlokJha 31 August 2010 1:24PM @AdamRutherford Yes but just look at how thoughtful ther person in front of the computer looks! Mmmm, lots of thinking, see? drshibleyrahman 31 August 2010 1:30PM I do a blog called 'Law and Medicine' with a team of writers. The aim of this blog is to explain the advances in medical research that might have an impact on the formation of laws in society. It's all done in a non-threatening, friendly way, and the good thing about this it feels as if you're permanently being peer-reviewed, content-wise. I believe that there is no such blog in the UK, although the lawandmedicine does have a Twitter feed and we are on Facebook. My own first degree was in Cambridge in neuroscience, and my PhD was too. However, my postdoc was in academic neurology; I latterly became really interested in the law which I'm a postgraduate in as well. However, I find that other people's blog contributions are needed by people who can actually communicate science effectively. This is the challenge we all face there's no point doing all this research, if we don't explain it to the general public. Best wishes, Dr Shibley Rahman (@RecoveryShibley on Twitter) phaine 31 August 2010 2:56PM @AdamRutherford Yes but just look at how thoughtful ther person in front of the computer looks! Mmmm, lots of thinking, see? Yes, they're thinking "I wish I could afford a better computer" PommieBarsteward 31 August 2010 3:22PM We aim to entertain, enrage and inform

3|Page VOLUME 9

Enrage? Are you expecting the sky fairy brigade to come and visit? I'd have thought that entertain, engage and inform may have been a bit more conciliatory but probably less fun. PalMD 31 August 2010 3:45PM I'm most interested to see how you will navigate the treacherous waters of English libel law. LondonLouis 31 August 2010 3:46PM Good on you, the Guardian team. SuntoryBoss 31 August 2010 4:11PM Good stuff etc, but I think I'd rather be "engaged" than "enraged". If I wanted to be the latter I'd read the Huffington Post's pathetic dribblings.

AlokJha 31 August 2010 4:51PM @SuntoryBoss Hopefully all of the stuff our bloggers do will engage (even the stuff that enrages) jamesg1103 31 August 2010 5:05PM I hope the name "Punctuated Equilibrium" for your evolution blog isn't permanent. Some of us are less than impressed by that particular "idea" and by much of the work produced by Gould. GrahamRounce 31 August 2010 5:16PM Why would you want to enrage? Create arguments just for the sake of it? That's supposed to be a good thing? While I'm at it, I don't know what the Science page does on your computer, but on mine it doesn't explode. PalMD 31 August 2010 6:31PM @jamesg: that falls into the category of "get your own damned blog" @Graham: sometimes substantive engagement involves "enragement". See @jamesg. oharar 31 August 2010 9:52PM Alok @SuntoryBoss Hopefully all of the stuff our bloggers do will engage Grrl never got engaged - we went straight to getting married. jamesg1103 I hope the name "Punctuated Equilibrium" for your evolution blog isn't permanent. Some of us are less than impressed by that particular "idea" and by much of the work produced by Gould. The name of the blog is a hint. Grrl will publish 7 posts on one day, and then not post anything for another 6 months. Spironis 31 August 2010 10:46PM One presumes The Guardian wishes to project credibility. It would do well to display a possible, possibly elegant molecule rather than overlapping blots from a child's spilled paint set. To criticise is to volunteer. Here are five molecular pictures, including stereograms, as *.png graphics, http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/nicemol.zip five files enclosed D3-trishomocubane (pictured without its 14 hydrogens) is notable for its threefold rotational symmetry and its chiral asymmetry, C11H14 (carbon blue and hydrogen white). The molecule, like opposite shoes, has distinct mirror images. We put some colour into it with three carbonyls (oxygen red) and six nitrogens (blue), C5H2N6O3. Each nitrogen is a non-inverting chiral center. Adjust gamma, brightness, contrast to have it display well. Or post another molecule in your banner - that is not an embarrassment to those skilled in the art. Mediocrity is a vice of the doomed. PalMD 1 September 2010 3:10AM OMG what a tool. GrahamRounce 1 September 2010 9:34PM Ok, I think he means "enrage". brembs 2 September 2010 2:19AM Good luck with the blogging network! looking forward to following it.

4|Page VOLUME 9

2010/08/31 GUARDIAN BLOG: IS SCIENCETEACHING UNDERMINED BY RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN FAITH SCHOOLS?

The evolution-creationism debate in schools must be about religious education lessons not just science lessons. This is my blueprint for better RE

Pupils should be encouraged to question and debate the teachings of different religions in RE lessons. Photograph: Markku Ulander/Rex Features From time to time there are concerns raised that some state-funded religious schools teach creationism, or intelligent design, in their science lessons. The last Labour government and the Conservatives in opposition have always denied this is a problem and have always said that they will not stand for the teaching of creationism in science lessons. Ministers always say that creationism can't be taught in science lessons Whenever this issue cropped up in parliament I was always concerned that the debate was missing the point. It is no good teaching about evolution (which is a scientific fact) in a science lesson at 9am then at 10am, in a religious education lesson, instructing pupils not to believe it. The whole problem with RE lessons is not that they exist but that they amount to religious instruction in some schools. There is no basis for allowing state-funded schools to indoctrinate their pupils, even if that is what their parents want. They can provide this in optional afterschool (or lunchtime) classes or clubs. They could even have something on a Sunday where children are taught to be believers. They could call it Sunday School!5|Page VOLUME 9

The recognition that RE lessons can be proselytising is reflected in the right that parents have to withdraw their children from these lessons. In contrast, they can't withdraw their children from biology lessons even if they have profound religious objections to their being taught about sexual reproduction or evolution these subjects are recognised as non-proselytising. Secularists like me believe that RE is a valid subject for study in the curriculum but should be about what different religions (and other world views like humanism) believe; it should not be about what ought to be believed. So Catholic schools should be allowed to use RE lessons to teach that the Catholic church opposes contraception and believes that homosexuality is a sin, but not that the children ought to believe those things. The lessons should set out contrasting views on that subject. It is reasonable that a school with a large proportion of children of parents with a particular religion might spend more time learning about the beliefs and practices of that religion, but not to the exclusion of other beliefs. At the moment, however, all RE falls outside the national curriculum for no good reason. In schools other than voluntary-aided faith schools the curriculum is set by a local Standing Advisory Committee on RE (SACRE)made up of religious representatives. Many faith schools can decide their own RE curriculum and it is not subject to Ofsted inspection but by an inspector of their own religion. This is hardly a bulwark against instruction and indoctrination. There is no requirement to have a humanist or atheist on such committees. And many refuse to have them even as non-voting members let alone as full members as the religious members are. 10 commandments sorry, suggestions for RE teaching 1) Religious education should be about what different people believe, not what pupils should believe. 2) It should be in the national curriculum and inspected by Ofsted. 3) Non-religious people should not be excluded from helping to draw up the curriculum. Under current arrangements of local determination non-religious people should be included equally and allowed to be full members. 4) It should teach about a range of world views, both religious and non-religious. 5) It should not pussyfoot around controversial religious views (on sex and gender, for example) but tackle them head-on. Pupils should learn what the doctrine is but be encouraged to question and debate it. 6) In those communities with a high proportion of children whose parents are of a particular religion, the curriculum can be skewed towards more coverage of that but not to the exclusion of other religions and world views. 7) End the right of withdrawal from RE classes, which would no longer be needed because the subject would be academic not proselytising. 8) Offer optional religious instruction classes after school if parents want that from a particular school. 9) End collective worship in state schools. 10) Worship opportunities made available on an optional basis for children if they or their parents want it. 6|Page VOLUME 9

All ten of these proposals were in the Liberal Democrat manifesto at the last election. It remains to be seen if any of them emerge intact from the coalition, and if so whether the plans survive attacks from the Labour opposition and from the bishops in the House of Lords. This article was amended on Tuesday 31 August 2010. The original implied that the problem of RE being effectively religious instruction affected all faith schools. This has been corrected. It has also been made clear that some SACREs exclude non-religious people altogether, and that many faith schools set their own RE curricula because some follow the SACRE ones. Please see Evan's comment below.

2010/08/31 GUARDIAN BLOG: MMR THEVACCINE DAMAGE MYTH THAT WILL NOT DIE

Despite the disproving of a link between MMR vaccination and autism, MMR is under attack again

Many parents are still suspicious of the MMR vaccine. Photograph: Rex It is now well-established that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of the view that MMR does not cause autism. The front page of the Mail on Sunday at the weekend has the headline"FAMILY WIN 18YR FIGHT OVER MMR DAMAGE TO SON" and a strap-line reading "90,000 pay out is first since concerns over vaccine surfaced". This is the case of a boy called Robert, who is now 18 and has severe brain damage such that he is unable to talk, stand unaided or feed himself, following a severe convulsion and onset of epilepsy at the age of 13 months. It is impossible not to feel sympathy and admiration for7|Page VOLUME 9

Robert and his family for his condition, their circumstances and their long battle for compensation. In fact I share the view of Robert's mother that 90,000 is not very much given the financial costs involved with a case like this. The text of the story makes clear in three places that Robert does not have autism, but it implies through repeated reference to the MMR/autism "controversy" that compensation payouts may now be forthcoming for those families who claim that MMR caused autism in their child. The article refers to the judgment of a three-person appeal panel under the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme who, by a majority decision, decided that Robert suffered convulsions, epilepsy and severe brain damage as a result of a serious reaction to the vaccination 10 days after receiving it. The ruling makes clear that it does not apply to autism, and even Robert's mother who runs a campaign group which is, to put it charitably, sceptical about vaccines points out that claims of autism are not considered under the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme. Robert's mother asserts there are 120 MMR cases waiting to be heard, which presumably refers to claims in respect of non-autism-related ill-health. The story states that the "judgement will give hope to hundreds of other parents whose children have been severely affected by routine vaccinations." And Robert's mother is also reported as saying that the ruling would give hope to hundreds of other parents fighting to prove that their children's disabilities were caused by MMR injection. There is an accompanying analysis article written by Sally Beck, who I had rather expected to be a doctor but is instead a journalist with a history of writing MMR-causes-autism stories. The analysis piece is headlined "New hope for parents who claim MMR jab blighted their children". It says: "Up to 2,000 parents remain convinced their children have suffered significant harm from MMR but have been unable to prove it. This new decision will give them hope even though compensation panels do not officially recognise autism claims." Surely therefore any hope would be false hope? The panel say in their ruling: "We would stress that this decision is fact-specific and it should not be seen as a precedent for any other case. In particular, it has no relevance to the issue ... as to whether there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism." The story has been picked up in the Daily Telegraph who said "A man who suffered severe brain damage after being given the MMR vaccine as a baby has been awarded 90,000 in a landmark ruling expected to pave the way for thousands of similar compensation claims." Even the Daily Mail story only talked of hundreds. Where did "thousands" come from? Step forward Tory MP Nadine Dorries described as "a member of the powerful Commons Health Committee". She is quoted in the article as saying that: "If an independent panel has reached the conclusion that there has been a link between the MMR vaccine and the brain damage suffered by this boy in this case, then it is fair to assume that there could be as many as thousands of children and parents in the same position. " Asserting that there are thousands of cases of brain damage being ascribed to MMR might well have the effect of deterring parents from having the vaccination. It is of course well8|Page VOLUME 9

established that a measles outbreak could well cause severe brain damage as that is a recognisedcomplication of measles infection. It does not seem responsible for any MP to be creating an MMR scare all over again without good evidence to back it up.

2010/08/31 GUARDIAN BLOG: MMR: THEZOMBIE CONTROVERSY THAT STILL LURCHES ON

The MMR vaccine makes an unwelcome return to the headlines

Measles is far more dangerous to children than the MMR vaccine. Photo: Alexander Caminada/Rex Features I thought it was over. I thought it was finished. But then I flicked on the TV and saw that Ultimate Big Brother was on, some monstrous new zombie version of the interminable celebration of mediocrity, and now I'm too traumatised even to glance at a TV Guide until probably around December time, when I have my annual "oh dear God is this really what they're putting on the telly for Christmas" moment. But even that doesn't compare to the nausea-inducing sight of the letters "MMR" plastered across the front of the Mail on Sunday like an immigrant who made house prices go up. Once again the MMR vaccine has hit the headlines, and once again the journalism involved has been less than stellar. Having apologised to the shopkeeper for all the swearing, I hurried back home to pour a stiff brandy and take a look at the article.9|Page VOLUME 9

The facts of the case are fairly straightforward. Some 18 years ago Robert, the then 13-month old son of Jackie Fletcher, was given an MMR vaccination. Ten days later he began suffering seizures that left him"epileptic and severely retarded". Fletcher believes that the MMR vaccine was responsible and has fought a long campaign for compensation, which she was eventually awarded last week by the government's Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme. Previous applications failed on the grounds that it was impossible to prove that the vaccine was responsible, but on appeal a new expert panel (consisting of a barrister and two doctors) agreed - though not unanimously - that the "temporal association" was enough to pay out on. That means Jackie Fletcher now has 90,000, which she's apparently going to spend on home improvements that will benefit her severely disabled son. On balance, I think that's a good thing, and I hope the money goes some way towards reducing the burden Fletcher faces as a full-time carer. The problems start when people try to make this story into something it isn't, for example by splashing it across the front page of the Sunday edition of their newspaper with a headline like "Family win 18 year fight over MMR damage to son: 90,000 payout is first since concerns over vaccine surfaced". There is a real danger that a decision like this will end up being used by anti-vaccination activists in the way thatthe case of Hannah Poling was in the United States. The first and most important point to make is that this case tells us nothing new about the safety of MMR, for two broad reasons. Firstly, it's a legal verdict, not a scientific one, which was reached by a panel of one barrister and two doctors, and where one of the doctors disagreed with a verdict that was at best tenuous. Correlation in time isn't proof of causation, any more than hearing a car drive past the window as my WiFi dies is evidence that nearby traffic affects my internet connection (although it still feels good to shout at them). A great weakness of the human mind is that we tend to be good at finding patterns and relationships where none actually exist. Secondly, the fact is that vaccines do have risks and side-effects. Although research has failed to find any general link between MMR and brain damage, it's plausible that some rare reaction to the vaccine resulted in Fletcher's predicament; but that shouldn't be seen as evidence of a wider problem, as the panel's judgement makes clear: "We would stress that this decision is fact-specific and it should not be seen as a precedent for any other case. In particular, it has no relevance to the issue... as to whether there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism." Even if this was a reaction to the vaccine, we know from decades of using it that the chances of it happening are so rare as to be insignificant compared to the risk of contracting the diseases the vaccine protects from. Millions of doses of MMR have been dished out with only a handful of cases like Fletcher's; but measles is far more dangerous, with 1 in 1000 cases in the UK causing inflammation of the brain - 40% of those leading to permanent brain damage. In short then, this is a one-off legal decision, and yet the Mail on Sunday's headline tries to conflate this with the wider, long-since discredited concerns about MMR and autism. While the Mail accepts that the link between MMR and autism has been discredited, it seems to do so grudgingly, and the article is a great example of "false balance", with sensible contributions placed against the likes of MP Nadine Dorries and Dr Marcel Kinsbourne. Kinsbourne was brought in as an "expert witness" for the appeal, where apparently "he explained the biological changes which had occurred in Robert's brain following the vaccination." His presence in this story is quite disturbing, given that Brian Deer's10 | P a g e VOLUME 9

investigations revealed through a Freedom of Information request to the Legal Services Commission that he pocketed over 400,000 working as an expert witness for a solicitor trying to build a case against MMR. Needless to say this isn't mentioned in the Mail piece, but one wonders why such a controversial figure was called to give evidence at all. Nadine Dorries has somehow managed to grab a place on the Health Select Committee for this parliament, and blunders into the debate with a gem of a quote which neatly ignores the panel's warning that the verdict isn't applicable more widely: "If an independent panel has reached the conclusion that there has been a link between the MMR vaccine and the brain damage suffered by this boy in this case, then it is fair to assume that there could be as many as thousands of children and parents in the same position." Dorries is needlessly fanning the flames, but of course her comment feeds nicely into the Mail's narrative, which seems to be based on the story of hundreds of plucky parents, fighting to get justice for damage caused by a jab that the (Labour) government insisted was safe. It's a view that's reinforced by the inclusion of a highly sympathetic comment piece by journalist Sally Beck (underneath the main article on the same page), which portrays the struggle of parents seeking compensation without any real attempt at scrutiny of their claims. It's a bloody good narrative too. There are many parents out there with children they sincerely believe to have been damaged by vaccines. A few of them might actually be right, but in any case I wouldn't begrudge all of them receiving compensation like Jackie Fletcher has - there are far worse ways to spend public money. But MMR is a safe vaccine, it's been in use for 22 years now, and it's time that journalists at the Daily Mail and elsewhere started putting science ahead of a good story. But for many of these hacks, the MMR controversy isn't over. Like the tales of Japanese soldiers found deep in jungles unaware that the war has ended, they seem to exist in a sort of jungle of misunderstanding, still debating an issue which has long since been resolved, and thus producing journalism which is almost as bad as this jungle metaphor. The problem is that this creates a kind of feedback loop. Readers commenting in the Daily Mail claim there's been "too much controversy" surrounding it, the irony being that the controversy has been generated by papers like the Mail itself. With vaccination rates struggling to reach pre-Wakefield levels, their reporting could yet have serious consequences for public health.Comments in chronological order (Total 41 comments)

PalMD

31 August 2010 5:11PM We're seriously going nuts over here in the U.S. An influential NY Times health blog declared that vaccination avoidance is not the cause of the resurgence of pertussis here, missing the essential fact that the disease is thriving in reservoirs of the unvaccinated: one reservoir is the antivax parents who claim "moral exemptions" and the other is in recent immigrants who are often too afraid to try to access the health system, fearing they might be denounced and deported.

PalMD

31 August 2010 5:12PM I should clarify that the immigrants are not so much a reservoir as the children are susceptible to catching the disease and suffering because of relatively wealthy vax refusers. All the infants who have dies in CA so far have been Latino.

Gareth100

31 August 2010 5:16PM I suspect that the dismally dim Nadine Dorries will be slapped down pretty quick by the powers that be as any suggestion that there will be a payout bonanza for those who erroneously blame MMR for their childs autism will be viewed pretty unfavourably by the Treasury. How the hell she got on the health committee is quite beyond me.

11 | P a g e VOLUME 9

JaneBasingstoke

31 August 2010 5:37PM "plastered across the front of the Mail on Sunday like an immigrant who made house prices go up" LOL. That is so Mail. Bottom of Form

JaneBasingstoke

31 August 2010 5:43PM OK, let's allow for the possibility that MMR can in very rare instances cause these sorts of problems. 1. Most likely mechanism involves measles doing its thing. The measles virus, let us not forget, likes to fuck with the human brain. So even if MMR does sometimes cause problems, skipping vaccination risks worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles#Complications

2. Statistics still strongly suggests something else is causing the vast majority of extra cases. So perhaps an awareness campaign to look at the other suspects in the frame. You never know, perhaps the Mail might then devote its headlines to something that is actually contributing to the problem. 3. If parents won't submit their children to MMR then they need to be reminded that most of the MMR scare mongers have strongly recommended some sort of vaccination.

WhiteCoatEirini

31 August 2010 6:04PM I am working in translational biology. All I have to say is one thing: neither doctors nor biologists know what's going on with the human body. All we are doing in the labs is testing, we cannot put our hands on fire and say: the vaccine is safe or THIS is how autism and mental retardation occur. We are trying to fish things out, if we don't have the right bait, we don't catch the right thing. So, in this case, I am left speechless!!!!! How did these people assume it was the vaccine? There are millions of examples of mental retardation patients whose disease onset took place on a random day, in a random environment, from perfectly healthy parents. From all the human organs... The brain is one of the most mysterious ones because we don't have easy access to it. Hopefully one day we will know what makes the brain develop MS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, mental retardation... but for now, needles in haystack people!!!!

PalMD

31 August 2010 6:34PM All I have to say is one thing: neither doctors nor biologists know what's going on with the human body. O RLY? Funny, i have a whole career based on a somewhat different proposition.

ArecBalrin

31 August 2010 6:48PM Think of it like how Space Ork technology worked in Warhammer 40K: they don't know how it works, it just does because they really believe it should.

backandtotheleft

31 August 2010 6:52PM Lest we forget: http://www.thepoke.co.uk/index.php/2010/07/15/daily-mails-secret-editorial-formularevealed/

roxane

31 August 2010 7:01PM All I have to say is one thing: neither doctors nor biologists know what's going on with the human body. O RLY? Funny, i have a whole career based on a somewhat different proposition. Don't you think that a more humble approach would suit science good, Martin? Science diggs deep down, measuring in naoscales, unfolding proteins and what not, but don't tell me, that this provides us with the full picture.

PalMD

31 August 2010 7:18PM That is a straw man. There is a difference between "knowing everything" and "not knowing what's going on with the human body". We know enough medicine to, for instance, prevent nearly a third of a million deaths from heart disease yearly in the U.S.

Deebles

31 August 2010 7:29PM

12 | P a g e VOLUME 9

I think, to add some context, that it's worth mentioning that we've had our first two deaths from acute measles in recent years (one in 2006, the other in 2008) since 1992. And that, more recently, Bulgaria has had a measles outbreak that resulted in 24 deaths. We should be considerably safer if we can just crank up measles-containing vaccine coverage from its current 85% level to 90%. Unfortunately, the cranks won't let us.

ikesolem

31 August 2010 8:48PM Rational scientific debate on vaccination and public health has gone out the window as quasi-religious antivaccination forces running on ignorance and paranoia clash with pharmaceutical corporations out to avoid liability while making a tidy profit. The facts? Good luck... but trying to sort out the two sides should lead to at least one robust conclusion: you can't effectively combat infectious disease without good public health infrastructure, vaccines or not. From a scientific and medical perspective, atypical reactions and allergies are a constant threat in any drugbased treatment plan, and vaccines are just specialized drugs. Hence, MMR really might have played a role in some deaths, that's to be expected. Recall that the first vaccines known to Europe were the imports of Arabic and African native medicine - the smallpox scabs or fluids were gathered, prepared in some way, and anyone brave enough to take the inoculation might be protected against smallpox - or, depending on the witch doctor's methodology, they might get infected. Many vaccines are little different than this, if more carefully prepared and standardized - either a weakened strain of the virus or a heat-killed preparation of viral proteins, etc. Thus, even with such attenuated strains, a small percentage of the public will have atypical or allergic reactions - but with good public health infrastructure, such cases can be rapidly identified and treated, before any autoimmune-linked fever has a chance to cause brain damage - which is a better option than letting the lawyers argue over whether it was the doctor, the hospital, or the pharmaceutical corporation that killed the child by negligence. The lawyers for the pharmaceutical lobby will instead tell you that vaccines are absolutely safe, which is nonsense - but with decent medical care, the risks are insignificant - assuming the vaccine was prepared correctly, and that the vaccine is really needed as part of a well-designed public health strategy. I don't understand the religious argument against vaccination, and wouldn't try to restate it - who understands the Spanish Inquisition? Now, pharma companies like to do production runs and then stock the product - but for vaccines, this is a problem. Shelf life is short - they tried to extend it with organic mercury anti-microbials, and that lead to all the autism claims (unsupported scientifically, tho high-sensitivity individuals might have been affected). They also like to market their goods - and with vaccines, they've often resorted to a little vaccine hysteria of their own. The birds are coming! Or the pigs! The rats? For this reason, it might be best if public sector vaccine production was undertaken - there's really very little profit in it for the private sector if they have to keep vaccine production running around the clock. This is how U.S. anthrax vaccine production was done for decades until privatized in 1997 (sold off to an ex-Admiral of the U.S. Navy in partnership with Saudi-Lebanese businessmen, aka Bioport-Emergent-Vaxgen), and it worked pretty well. Recall that when smallpox was eliminated, it wasn't just the discovery and production of the vaccine that mattered, it was the effective strategic administration of the vaccination program that did the job. There's another reason for this, in that the real goal of a vaccination program is to eliminate the disease entirely - after which vaccination ceases. How many for-profit private enterprises do you know that are looking to put themselves out of business? If you sell a disease treatment, and the disease vanishes, well, bye-bye profits. In contrast, people will always want aspirin, alcohol, opiates, cannabinoids, stimulants, wide-spectrum antibiotics and so on - perfect for the private sector. However, I doubt the shareholders like this de-privatization idea, given the $1 billion in useless but Desperately Needed swine flu vaccine contracts from the U.S. government in 2009 alone - the biggest case of manufactured hysteria since the Asian Bird Flu Crisis of 2005, wasn't it?

AMother

31 August 2010 9:56PM 'Rational scientific debate on vaccination and public health has gone out the window as quasi-religious antivaccination forces running on ignorance and paranoia clash with pharmaceutical corporations out to avoid liability while making a tidy profit'. Look no further than the Steiner Waldorf School movement and the hidden religion behind it called Anthroposophy:

13 | P a g e VOLUME 9

http://projects.latimes.com/schools/custom-ranking/county/los-angeles/statistic/immunization-exemptionrate/order/highest/ Bottom of Form

LogicLover

1 September 2010 2:08AM MMR should stand for "Mail Makes Retards". I`d contend there is a greater correlation between reading the Daily Mail and intellectual deterioration than with any vaccine.

ElGwero

1 September 2010 4:08AM Not sure I'd classify Anthroposophy as the "hidden religion" behind the Steiner or Waldorf school concept, necessarily. It's pretty much up front, at least where I am. And a quick google search will bring you all you need to know about it too. And yes, we did consider a Waldorf school for our kids, and yes, I did do the research, and no, I wouldn't touch such schools with barge pole. Fair enough if others like it though.

AbelW

1 September 2010 6:05AM This latest death rattle of of the antivaccine movement involves a boy who seemed quite normal until ten days after he received his MMR vaccination. Alert readers will recognize ten days as the peak of post-MMR seizure activity in children who are apparently genetically predisposed to febrile seizures; such readers will also understand that similar seizures peak within a day or two of vaccination against pertussis. It happens that when 14 children who had been considered to have been injured by the pertussis vaccine (and had all suffered a seizure within a day or two of vaccination against pertussis) were examined, ALL of them turned out to have recognized forms of epilepsy and ALMOST ALL (11 of the 14) had mutations affecting a single particular gene that is associated with febrile seizure, the development of epilepsy early in childhood, andwait for itautism. It also happens that this affected individuals symptoms are, according to press accounts, consistent with epilepsy syndromes associated with mutations in that particular gene that cause, among other things, mental retardation and problems with motor coordination as well as autism-like symptoms. It also happens that such children follow the same clinical course whether or not the first symptoms happen to emerge in proximity to vaccination. Eleven of 14 children in the only study to genetically evaluate this type of vaccine injury were not in fact injured by vaccines but instead happened to have mutations that entirely accounted for their developmental problems, and the other 3 of 11 had similar problems unrelated to vaccination. This was noted by one member of the the panel that heard this case, but he was overruled by the two others who (as shown by the pertussisrelated research) unfortunately quite erroneously believed that temporal association indicated causationas if entering middle school causes puberty.

SuzanneWinchester

1 September 2010 7:50AM I was in Edinburgh on Sunday and after reading Martin's Tweet about this article took a look at the Scottish Sunday Mail. No article about MMR, but their front page was taken over by a scare-mongering HPV Vaccine piece instead! I wonder why the difference?

drsocialpolicy

1 September 2010 8:02AM MMR is absolutely the zombie health scare story of all time for the Mail. They will carry on running it forever... Jackie Fletcher is a determined woman and I'm pleased that she has received some money that will help make the task of caring for her disabled son somewhat easier.

muscleguy

1 September 2010 9:19AM @WhiteCoatEirini Spoken by someone who is focussed on the twigs on the trees and never learned to appreciate the tree, let alone the wood. I trained in physiology, then got into developmental biology then learned MolBiol including transgenics and esoteric stuff like bandshifts but I never lost sight of the organism, you have let our confusion in the plethora of gene interactions discovered only recently blind you to the vast amount we do know about how the body works and how it grows and develops and sickens. It is not actually necessary to understand the molecular details in order to develop successful treatments, the history of vaccination proves that one. It may help to know the molecular detail but that is yet to be proven as a general principle, it is one thing to know the 3D structure of the active site of a target protein but that information is no use to you if your chemistry is insufficient to build a non toxic, sufficiently specific molecule to target it, not to mention that even if you have that we lack in many cases sufficient delivery vehicles. Many are the drugs found through high

14 | P a g e VOLUME 9

throughput screening using tethered targets that turn out to be useless for the above reasons, despite that they work at the molecular level. Wake up and smell the roses.

butteredballs TomG1

1 September 2010 9:41AM Didn't help at the time that Blair went private and gave his baby the vaccines separately. 1 September 2010 1:51PM Part of me wants to hold anti-vaccination parents financially and criminally liable for damage caused to children (theirs, and others) by measles, mumps or rubella infections, but I know that would be unfair (and probably counter-productive).

ikesolem

1 September 2010 3:36PM The two protagonists in this debate - pharmaceutical corporations and religious groups - have very little credibility when it comes to scientific claims about the value of vaccination. Their concern is not the health of the patient, but rather the health of their institutions and ideologies - take the anti-vaccination crowd's arguments: The English theologian Rev. Edmund Massey argued that diseases are sent by God to punish sin and that any attempt to prevent smallpox via inoculation is a "diabolical operation." The scientific version of this claim was stated by Darwin some time later: "There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man." The scientist and the theologian are both catering to the sensitivities of the aristocratic Victorian class structure of the time. If concentrated wealth and power were not divinely granted, then British class structure must simply be the natural outcome of biological evolution - and thus, the white robes of the priest were replaced by the white robes of the scientist. Out went the church collection plate, in came the philanthropic grant and the private scientific foundation. Hence, there is still a tendency to celebrate Darwin while ignoring that he also spawned the dubious "science" of eugenics that became so popular in the 1930s and 1940s, in Germany. In reality, Darwin's claims have been widely discredited, and his notions are about as relevant to modern biology as Isaac Newton's are to modern physics - of historical interest only. However, isn't it interesting that you could base a hysterical antivaccination screed on Darwinian concepts as well as Spanish Inquisition concepts? Funny though - Darwin never suggested that the children of wealth should be sent to live in the slums for a year as a "natural selection test" - and those who contracted diseases must be allowed to die, since they are genetic inferiors? Off to Auschwitz! None of that changes the fact that many modern vaccines - HPV, swine flu, etc. - are likely useless and only exist because of massive marketing campaigns by the pharma sector, along with media and government collusion. Corruption at the WHO linked to conflicts-of-interest (shareholder involvement) in vaccine recommendations has already been demonstrated, for example: Documents acquired through the Danish Freedom of Information Act by the Danish daily newspaper Information show that Juhani Eskola, a Finnish vaccines adviser on the WHO board, has received 5.6m (6.2m; $9m) for his research centre, the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare. The money, from GlaxoSmithKline for research on vaccines during 2009, is the institutes main source of income. There are three really bad sources of medical advice that any wise person will ignore: media corporations, pharmaceutical corporations (aka "advertisers"), their various lackeys, and religious/ideological nuts. This leaves... trained and experienced doctors, maybe?

SurplusGamer

1 September 2010 4:03PM @ikesolem Oh dear, oh dear. You have been reading some rubbish. Someone else can probably cover this one in better detail than I could but briefly. 1) Darwin did not 'spawn' eugenics. Eugenics may have come about as a result of an ill-advised attempt to use Darwin's theories in a certain way, but all Darwin himself did was observe natural selection, and report his observation. Those observations are still relevant today, and provide the foundation for a science that has been built on since. There has been lots of advance since Darwin in explaining the mechanisms -behind- what Darwin observed, but his observations of natural selection are still supremely relevant.

15 | P a g e VOLUME 9

Blaming Darwin for Eugenics? That's like calling me a murderer for accidentally dropping a pen on the pavement only to have someone later that day slip up and crack their head open. Yes, it was a regrettable consequence, but hardly something that I should have to account for. 2) Similarly, Einstein did not destroy Newton's work. He built on it. Newtonian mechanics is correct for all intents and purposes, which is why we don't need to apply the relativistic modifications to the equations when dealing with everyday things. What Einstein did was to add a modifier to those equations, one which only changes the result in a significant way at very high speeds approaching the speed of light. That has important, earth-shattering ramifications but it doesn't destroy what Newton built, it just adds a very important caveat.

ramekins

1 September 2010 7:52PM ikesolem excellent post, ta

Yellowriver

1 September 2010 11:13PM 90,000 is a pathetic sum. It really is a joke when the governments have bailed out the banks with taxpayers money. Pharmaceutical companies should hide their heads in shame. They are literally getting away with murder. First they destroy our children with un-safe vaccines and then destroy our children even more with un-safe drugs. A total disgrace. When is the world going to wake up to these evil non compassionate people.

Yellowriver

2 September 2010 1:06AM @ LogicLover who says MMR should stand for "Mail Makes Retards". Actually it should stand for. Mass Market Retailers Masked Money Raiders Mothers Must Resist Maximum Medical Regression Measels and Mumps Ruse and the rest:

hillbillyzombie

2 September 2010 2:12AM What a noxious group of posters. The personal attacks on Ben Goldacre, as far as I can tell, are just innuendoridden, ad-hominum slurs with little or no substance. It would be very disturbing if this is the face of the antivaccine movement. Attacks on evidence-based public health policy were common in my youth as I grew up in Appalachia. Folks want explanations and they need someone to blame when things go wrong. And there always seem to be those who are able and willing to take advantage of people's pain and fear and whip it into hysteria. Measles was no joke back in the day, and the MMR vaccine has saved a hell of a lot of hillbilly kids. It was the 60's - 70's and the new doctors at the local clinic (Palistinian doctors who had immigrated after the 67 war) began a vaccination program for the outlying valleys and hollows up in the hills. Those 4 lost and lonely Arab doctors in SW Virgina did a lot of damn good and it's a shame to see it undone by a bunch of wing nuts. I honestly want to cry.

2010/09/01 GIRL, INTERRUPTING: ON WOMENIN SCIENCEI am always in 2 minds about Women in Science. There is something about that title that reminds me of the Muppet Show and I can hear the announcement line sounding like Pigs in Space and it just sounds silly.. I am, after all, a woman in science though I havent really ever thought of myself as that. I dont mean I think I am not a scientist (I am) and I am pretty clear that I am a woman, but those things dont seem like 16 | P a g e VOLUME 9

they should be mutually exclusive to me. The term Woman in Science actually points out that that subject (women)in Science is something somehow different. I have always thought, in my job why does (should) it matter that I am a woman? Other than I obviously use different washroom facilities. My position on this as a graduate student was a follows: I am training to be a scientist, and I am just as good (or bad) as the next guy or gal, I should be judged on my merits not on my reproductive equipment. So I was adamantly against participating in any society which highlights the fact I am different I didnt want to be a part of women in science groups, full stop, which to me seemed divisive and separates women even further from a male dominated profession. It is true that women are under-represented in many sciences, especially the physical sciences, and they did not participate in professional science (except on the sly) until fairly recently. There are some pretty amazing stories about women who worked in science against all of the odds. There are amazing individual stories about Rosalind Franklin, Caroline Hershel and so many others that worked in science before they were really allowed and yes it really was allowed. And we love these stories! I do, they are great, and impressive. In the UK they love an underdog, and in the US they love the pioneer American dream spirit against all odds! These amazing forerunners fought the system and won. Individually this is powerful stuff. But should you really have to fight against the odds just to have a job in science? And what about all of the women who probably fought the good fight and still failed, or had to give it up, or quit to have children (as a lot of people did, as it was normal) who knows about them? My mother (who is a social worker) always told me that if she had it to do all over again she would be a wildlife biologist, or a park ranger. But my mother was born in the 30s in Southern US and as she said thats just the way it was, women were either nurses, teachers or social workers so she didnt even KNOW she had a choice, really. And some of the women, I am sad to say, who have succeeded against all odds are the worst about repressing other women, just like some of the most conservative people about social equality are the very ones that could have used a leg up, simply because they themselves fought against the odds and therefore think why cant everyone else? I really dont want to be and hope I am not like that, not that I have a startling Nobel prize winning career, but I dont want to be intolerant of people with different backgrounds (be they women or whatever underrepresented portion of the population) who didnt do what I did. No ones life is the same. I also think by excluding people you cut your base, you necessarily limit what can be done, just like only funding the elite. And while (insert whatever under-represented group you like) arent excluded in any formal sense these days, they may well be excluded in an unconscious manner, unconscious bias and this can sting, and in some instances be so discouraging, people just think forget it, I cant (or dont want to) deal with this. I think about some of the things that have been said to me in my scientific career, for instance: When I got my first independent fellowship from NSF, I was ultra-excited, and a senior (male) professor told me You only got it because you are a woman ?!?! When I was on an interview panel with a male colleague who said (in response to a question I asked the candidate) She just thinks that because she is a woman Thankfully, these instances, at least in my career, have been rare. Most people dont think or at least dont say things like this. 17 | P a g e VOLUME 9

So here is the two minds bit bias still exists, and I truely believe that all people, regardless of race, gender, etc. should be encouraged not discouraged, so maybe a women in science group is the way to do this? But I still dont want to be a member, because I dont want to classify myself as different, but I think, as I didnt used to think, there is a place for this, whether or not I want to participate myself. So if you want to join a women in science (or whatever group) I have one thing to say you go girl!Comments (4) 4 Comments As a senior woman scientist I entirely understand your ambivalence. When younger I felt as you did, that I was a scientist who happened to be a woman, not a woman scientist. But as I have progressed I have seen just how many women have been deterred for the wrong reasons, and so I have slowly but surely turned into a woman who works indeed leads such groups. It is regrettable they are still necessary, but they are. And institutional culture change is a necessary part of that. I have the opportunity to try to push some of these activities in my new role as the University of Cambridges gender equality champion (so much broader than just science). And I have just started a blog http://athenedonald.wordpress.com to cover some of these issues, because they do need airing. I would hope to encourage the next generation, or those who feel in need of it, but it will take time to turn things around. And personal anecdote is not enough, however much incidents may hurt. Organisations change, as the 1999 MIT study showed, by hard facts being put on the table. Boring but true. Comment by Athene Donald September 1, 2010 @ 4:30 pm | Reply Thank you for your comment I am in favor of hard facts, institutional change and evidence for that change. I dont find the MIT study in 1999 dull by any stretch of the imagination, for the same reasons that I believe in Affirmative Action programmes in the US, real changes some times need to be enforced and we all need an advocate at times. However this being said, what I am in two minds about is the balance between that real focused change and alienation of yourself as a group. For instance if I set up a womens discussion group for a journal club, would it be justified for the men in my university to have a similar mens group? I realize this is a somewhat naive example, however how do you fight this? How do you balance assimilation with segregation? How do you have people feel included if they mark themselves as exclusive? Conversely, I see the need for forcing change and the existance of such groups (which is what I hope I said in my post), supplied of course by facts and hard truths. Again, thank you for your input and your blog link, which is fantastic and very interesting. I also started my blog to air things of a somewhat similar nature, and this post is something I have been thinking about for a long time. Will my mind change? Not sure, but I seem to be in the process at the moment, and I can say I wholeheartedly support what you do. Comment by sylviamclain September 1, 2010 @ 10:23 pm | Reply I love your rationale for not participating in womens groupssounds familiar. I also have avoided involving myself in gender-based groups because I want it not to be an issue. But it is. I remember when I was the only female guide among a pack of muscled men at the put-in for a dangerous stretch of river, how crew after crew of rafters would pass by me and choose a man for their guide. I would only get a crew after all the men were taken. Later my crew would discover that I was highly skilled and that some of those sculpted bronze boys were mere beginners at the river thing. I had to steel myself on a daily basis not to be offended by the ubiquitous sexism. Lately I have been noticing how differently patients treat male vs female doctors. I spend a lot of time in clinic just observing. Male docs can speak softly and be heard, whereas female docs may have to push their way into a conversation, even though it is their advice that is sought. Patients are far more likely to barrage a female doc with an assortment of minor complaints and also to interrupt her. The differences in how we are treated by gender run deep, perhaps deeper than culture. Perhaps it is in our biology as well. So what I have determined to do, for my own medical practice, is to dress and behave in a fairly masculine manner. This is not hard for me as I am tall and muscular of build. I put my hair away, wear collared shirts, unisex shoes* and a white coat, smile less, and I get more respect. People pay more attention when I speak, and defer to me more as a physician than just as some girl. Perhaps we shouldnt have to play these games, but

18 | P a g e VOLUME 9

when you really want to do your job, whatever you can do to ease peoples kneejerk reactions to you could be beneficial. *Sexy shoes are a real handicap for a woman who is attempting to play a professional role. This is my observation, I have seen no studies about it. Want to be treated according to female gender instead of by profession?>Wear seductive heels. Comment by Teresa Gryder September 1, 2010 @ 4:53 pm | Reply I remember that from our raft guiding days as well, and comments like Youre too little to guide this thing arent you? and are you sure you can lift that. I however always just assumed they were ignorant and that I could do anything. I think one of the points I wanted to make in this post is its not about me! Women (or people for that matter) react in different ways to different things and and and and yes it IS an issue. But I dont think it has ANYTHING to do with biology, in many animals which exhibit sexual dimorphism, the female is very dominant, I think we have to be careful about linking what humans socially with biology because we dont have enough info and we have a different social structure Thanks for your input! Comment by sylviamclain September 1, 2010 @ 10:33 pm | Reply

2010/09/01 IN VERBA: PUBLIC SCIENCE, IN FRENCHBy Jessica Bland on 1 September 2010

Last week, I spent a couple of days at The Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans in France, a symbolic venue for a discussion of the place for science and technology in public debate. Described by UNESCO World Heritage as the first instance of a factory being built with the same care and concern for architectural quality as a palace or an important religious building, the saltworks were one of the first spaces designed with a particular technology in mind the production of salt. It was a stunning setting for debating the future public space for scientific and technological developments. The meeting was a summer school for about 45 French future leaders from the public and the private sectors. Organised by the Institut des Hautes tudes pour la Science et la Technologie (IHEST), as part of a yearlong training on science-society relationships, the delegates were asked to examine the place of science in the debates that unfold in the public sphere. I spoke at a session on international experiences of public debates around nanotechnology, 19 | P a g e VOLUME 9

alongside Jamey Wetmore from the US and Rinie van Est from the Netherlands. Jamey, along with a couple of colleagues, wrote a series of blogposts on the discussion. The Royal Society is intrinsically bound up in the history of these debates in the UK. The Societys 2004 report recommended a model for the governance of nanotechnology in which the government would engage directly with the public. In response, the government set up a Nanotechnology Engagement Group in 2005, which organised a series of public dialogue exercises. (The groups final report from 2007 is a detailed account of how this played out.) But some critics felt that one-off engagement exercises do not provide the public with enough space to make a substantive contribution to policy-making in this area. As the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollutions report on nanotechnology put it, we need a model that includes continual social intelligence gathering and the provision on ongoing opportunities for public and expert reflection and debate. But what would continuous interaction look like? This was a question that Rinie van Est tried to answer in his discussion of the Rathenau Institutes work. In addition to organising exercises or debates, the Institute attempted to seduce people into networks of continual public debate. These networks include the various parts of the media, politicians & wider publics and interested groups from policymakers to NGOs and lobbying organisations. The French National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP) had a recent series of nanotechnology debates disrupted by protestors, and so many of the questions from the audience concentrated on how to create a safe space for dialogue exercises in this difficult national context. (An assessment of the exercise is available here.) But what stuck with me was the term seduction in Rinies speech. Sitting at the interface of policymakers, scientists and the public, the Royal Society is engaged with these groups. The challenge he sets us is to become architects of this interaction, creating communities interested enough to engage regularly with a particular issue a kind of everyday engagement. Posted in Science and Society

2010/09/01 GUARDIAN BLOG: SEXEDUCATION,

STIS AND POLITICIANS MAKE A

TOXIC COMBINATION

20 | P a g e VOLUME 9

Should our response to the rising number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) be a call for more ignorance, as one MP appears to believe?

Year 6 sex education at a school in Lambeth. Photograph: David Levene/Guardian

Woody Allen, in the movie Annie Hall, tells a joke about how two elderly (probably Jewish) women are at a Catskill Mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." That's how I feel about sex education in Britain's schools. Over the bank holiday weekend, an MP, Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough) in response to media reports of a rise in the number of STIs (sexually transmitted infections) in teenagers, said on Twitter that the problem was too much sex education. He tweeted on 26 August: V disappointing news on STD rates in Pboro. No doubt our liberal friends will tell us we need MORE sex education as it's worked so well Predictably (although perhaps not to Mr Jackson), when it was further circulated on Twitter it led to a flurry of comments from people agreeing and mainly disagreeing with him. As far as I can tell, at first he chose not to respond but after some time he lashed out on Twitter, saying: Touched a raw nerve with shrill intolerant pro sex education Lefties who don't like debating the issues. Wonder why not? On 27 August he said, Re. Sex education Memo to sad tedious sex obsessed Leftie weirdos do please tweeting me [sic] You're confusing me with someone who's interested and then Left are simply unable to debate issues without personal abuse and vicious shrill denunciation. Important we keep them locked out of power The irony of tweeting an insult (even truly sad, tedious, sex-obsessed Leftie weirdos don't identify themselves as such) then complaining about insults led to a flurry of comment on Twitter, on blogs and even on the BBC. On Twitter everyone's tweets are public and accessible and it seems thatall the tweets that had been directed at Mr Jackson all that the bloggers could find are entirely civil (certainly by parliamentary standards) and seek to debate the issues. It is therefore hard to see what he 21 | P a g e VOLUME 9

was objecting to when he made his complaint on which he enlarged in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph, where he also said that: "I wanted to engage in intelligent debate but was met with a barrage of crude, personal abuse. I am always keen to hear from my constituents but these people were generally not even from Peterborough and were only interested in making personal attacks." This repeated assertion had all the ingredients needed to infuriate people who use Twitter rather like poking a wasps nest who felt not only that they were right (cue cartoon), that he was failing to engage with them, that he falsely or unfairly accused them, but also that they had caught him in that alleged falsehood. None of these blogs, except perhaps one, was particularly rude, as opposed to critical, and there is no evidence that they were emailed or tweeted to him. There are some important issues behind all this. First, it is not clear whether the rise in reported STIs reflects a genuine rise in incidence or is an artefact of more widespread testing (leading to more true positives being picked up). This has been covered by Mark Easton at the BBC and by Dr Petra Boynton, and no doubt elsewhere, so I will not pursue that further here. Second, there is the question of whether we have too much sex education or too little. I would say we have too little and of poor quality. This is also the view of young people themselves, who report that sex education does not tell them what they need to know or does not reach them in time. There is surely merit in providing sex education before children are sexually active, and before the pubertal "giggle factor" and the "schoolyard fable factory" prevent information being readily accepted. There is international evidence that "school-based sex education improves awareness of risk and ways to reduce it. It increases the intention to practise safer sex and delays rather than hastens the onset of sexual activity". There is also evidence of this from the UK. Hell, sex education has even been reported to work in Peterborough! Other countries seem to do it better (sex education that is). For example in the Scandinavian countries and Holland, which can hardly be described as puritanical, and where sex education is delivered early and clearly (and where the media is more supportive of it), the rate of teenage conception (and teenage abortion) is much lower than in the UK. The age of first intercourse is also delayed relative to the UK. It seems that providing information equips boys to resist peer pressure and girls better to resist boy pressure. It also makes the use of effective contraception more likely when sexual activity does begin. I agree with Anne Widdecombe. I will repeat that. I agree with Anne Widdecombe and Stuart Jackson that there is a problem with theover-sexualisation of young people by our media more widely. I agree with them that this is unhealthy. No doubt it contributes to the earlier onset of sexual activity and also causes misery to girls (mainly) as they feel expected to conform to the sexualised body images portrayed in the media. Given that this is the society we have (and it is impossible to uninvent the internet, movies, teen magazines, TV, etc) we have two approaches to tackling this problem that could be used in combination. First, we can try to roll back the normalisation of portrayals of women as mainly or primarily sexual objects. We can for example regulate or self-regulate so that so-called family newspapers do not portray women in topless or sexual poses, and that such objectification and soft porn is marketed as such. So, for example, magazines like Zoo and Nuts should be available to adults and displayed and sold as such. I have supportedcross-party campaigns on this led by the Fawcett Society and Object, but I am not certain whether Mr Jackson has done so.22 | P a g e VOLUME 9

Second, we can equip young people for the world as it exists rather than as we would wish it to be. The curious thing about those who believe in Victorian values is that the Victorian age was a golden era for the sexual exploitation of women and the abuse of children.

2010/09/01 GUARDIAN BLOG: THE BLUEREVOLUTION AT

BBC SCIENCE

With the BBC now providing links to the scientific research it reports, will 2010 be the year when science journalists discover the web link?

Journalists who provide links to sources show themselves to be open and trustworthy, and allow the reader to judge their interpretation of the source material It's funny how things can be connected. I was looking up the recipe for Worcestershire sauce last night and ended up idly clicking through Wikipedia. It turns out that the sauce is made from anchovies, which can cause amnesic shellfish poisoning, a brain-damaging illness that may have caused thousands of frantic seabirds to invade towns in Californian in 1961; events that may have provided some inspiration for Hitchcock's film The Birds. I found all this because of links. Links are the foundation of the world wide web. They take us beyond whatever we happened to be looking for, on journeys to places we never even imagined existed. Every minute of every day, millions of curious apes click billions of links, each travelling on their own miniature voyages of discovery. Of all the differences between science blogging and mainstream media reporting of science, one of the most profound is the use of links. Science bloggers often come from a scientific background, and as scientists we were drilled on the need for citations. Any factual statement or assertion you make in a research paper should be backed up with a reference to primary evidence supporting the claim. It's a habit that translates well into journalism, a profession which, like science, should be concerned with studying the world and reporting its findings on behalf of the public in an open and accountable way.23 | P a g e VOLUME 9

By providing links to sources (or indeed posting full interview transcripts), journalists can show that they're honest, open and trustworthy and allow the reader to judge whether the interpretation they've presented of someone else's work or words is the correct one. And links can do much more than that. By embedding links in text, journalists can turn their articles from static descriptions of the world into platforms that open up avenues for exploration and discovery to their audience, tapping into rich veins of knowledge and intrigue to provide the reader with far more value than one journalist could provide on their own. Links are beautiful, so why are newspaper websites so utterly reluctant to use them? In particular, why do science journalists who write about scientific papers so often fail to provide a link to a copy of the paper in question? It's an issue that Ben Goldacre raised with the BBC earlier this year, but with apparently little success. As Ben pointed out at the time: "It's very important that the public are able to get access to information, especially since media reports for many structural reasons can be light on information, or even contain errors." But now the Beeb seems to have relented. It has come to my attention,courtesy of the commenter soveda, that the BBC are occasionally at least now adding links to the original research in their articles, for example in the 5th paragraph here. This is to be congratulated. It's easy to moan when journalists get things wrong, but fair play to the BBC here they've listened, and they appear to have changed their practice. For that they should be congratulated, and if you give a crap about news outlets linking to research (and if not, why on Earth are you still reading this?) then you should go immediately to their feedback page, and leave a friendly comment. So will other organs follow the BBC's lead? Unfortunately, the scientific journals themselves are putting barriers in the way of journalists who want to link to the original research, as the science editor of the Times Mark Henderson told me earlier: "I think it's good practice to provide direct hyperlinks to journal articles where practical, but this isn't always easy to achieve. The main problem is that while some journals (eg Nature) provide such links on their embargoed press releases (or tell you how to work them out using DOI numbers), others do not. It can thus take time you don't have to establish the correct link. Worse still is that some journals (PNAS is a particular offender) don't have papers available online when an embargo lifts. It is thus impossible to link even to an abstract." Embargoes themselves are a difficult and controversial subject best left to the likes of Ivan Oransky, but clearly there's a problem with the way that PR officers at some major journals are operating by failing to support busy journalists, they're failing the public. One simple solution would fix this problem, as Mark suggests: "I would encourage all press officers dealing with journal articles to include a hyperlink to the paper, that will go live when an embargo lifts, on their press releases as a matter of course." Let's hope that the BBC's decision will start putting pressure on journals to do just this. But let's not forget the wider problem here. As blogs and mainstream media draw ever closer together a long-term shift epitomised by my own move to the Guardian there are opportunities for each to learn from the other. One of the most obvious things that bloggers can teach mainstream media journalists is the proper use of the link. It's not enough for journalists to simply report on the world, they need to let people see it for themselves.Posted byMartin RobbinsWednesday 1 September 2010 17.33 BSTguardian.co.uk

24 | P a g e VOLUME 9

Comments in chronological order (Total 11 comments) ScotinParis 1 September 2010 7:25PM So we can we expect to see references to the original papers in the Guardian ? Recommend? (4) PalMD 1 September 2010 7:40PM It is a constant source of frustration to read stuff cribbed from press releases or stories about a study with no citation, hyperlinked or otherwise. It's a holdover, I think, from traditional journalism of not sharing sources, not mentioning possible competitors, etc. It's also crappy journalism. Recommend? (1) SeymourDaily 1 September 2010 7:48PM Links are only half the battle, though. So many of the original papers are in journals that can only be accessed via paid subscription, or by academics whose institution subscribe. Tackling the scientific publishing racket is the next challenge... Recommend? (8) cmsdengl 1 September 2010 8:43PM Quite a lot of journal papers are behind pay walls, only accessible to subscribers (or members of university libraries). In an ideal world scientists could make publicly available summaries of their work, but that takes time. Add to that funding supporting public understanding of science is likely to be cut in the spending review - see here Recommend? (1) MartinRobbins 1 September 2010 8:46PM @ScottinParis - I don't speak for The Guardian, but in my articles, yes, and I think my colleagues at Guardian Science Blogs feel the same. @PalMD - Yes, I think promiscuity is another big culture difference. Bloggers are accustomed to working together to create value jointly across multiple blogs and networks, whereas newspapers have more of a "we have to do everything and we don't want to share" approach to life. I think though that might start to change a bit, but we'll see. @SeymourDaily - I agree it's a major issue, but I'm not sure I'd call it a racket. The fact is that someone somewhere has to pay for this stuff to be reviewed, edited and published (which is a costly process), and at the moment journals do. PLoS get around it by charging researchers instead of the public, but a fully open and free system would need considerable public subsidy. cmsdengl 1 September 2010 9:15PM Having said that, one of my Belgian colleagues has posted sixty of his papers on academia.edu - will have to check the copyright issues of that... SeymourDaily 1 September 2010 9:18PM @ MartinRobbins, that "someone somewhere reviewing and editing is frequently an academic giving their services for nothing..... well, not strictly speaking for nothing, because in academic circles it's described as being an 'indicator of esteem' to be a member of an editorial board, so I guess vanity comes into it, but the fact remains that the publishers who charge an arm and a leg for their journals receive thusands of hours of free labour from their editorial boards, who referee papers and spend many hours of legwork recruiting and chasing up referees. Add to that the fact that many 'high impact' journals that are not PLoS levy page charges on the scientists who publish their work in them and 'racket' isn't really so very far off the mark. Recommend? (2) MartinRobbins 1 September 2010 9:44PM @SeymourDaily: Yes, the reviews themselves are often done for free, but the wider costs of the process are still substantial, running into hundreds of pounds per paper, which translates to thousands of pounds per published paper once you account for the rejections. You give the example of PLoS, but they're a not-for-profit company - the prices they charge are more-or-less the prices they need to charge (which incidentally they frequently waive). You can live in denial of the costs, or you can figure out a better business model for people to support, but meanwhile someone somewhere has to pay for it. SeymourDaily 1 September 2010 10:01PM

25 | P a g e VOLUME 9

@MartinRobbins, all true, but 'someone somewhere' is, all too often, the taxpayer - funding university academics who do the research and also work for journals for nothing, then funding universities to buy back the results of publically-funded research in the journals purchased by university libraries....... which seems like a very good business model if you are a journal publisher. Add to this the fact that academics are compelled, by the demands of the RAE, to publish in the highestimpact journals possible, so they automatically buy into the system by competing to get their papers published in these journals, and the journals have society over a barrel. Recommend? (2) painstructure 2 September 2010 12:40AM my son keeps asking why, his 'whys' i am sure will dry up as they do when faced with the current contingencies of life. 'why do you work', 'why do we need money'. seymour daily from here, you have hit the nail on the head. 'esteem' factors is part of the new economy. the new economy is virtual. the virtual, in order to survive, needs the real. the esteem factors feed on the real at the same time esteem is the one thing the real lacks. the virtual, the distant, are akin to vampires, parasites. DavidWaldock 2 September 2010 6:48AM http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/02/babies-sugar-pain-relief-warning And yet, no linky linky... *le sigh*

2010/09/01 NATURE: WORLD VIEW: POLITICIZE ME

Barack Obama is finding that sometimes politics needs to put science in its place, says Daniel Sarewitz. Daniel Sarewitz In his inaugural address, US President Barack Obama promised to restore science to its "rightful place". How is his administration doing so far? It has failed to strengthen protections for endangered species, appointed officials with long records of suppressing politically inconvenient science, ignored new evidencebased recommendations for breast-cancer screening, failed to remove all restrictions from embryonic stem-cell science and ignored decades of research in a politically motivated effort to prevent nuclear waste from being stored at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Of course, during the regime of Republican president George W. Bush, opposition Democrats got surprisingly good political mileage from accusations that science and scientists were routinely suppressed, flouted or abused on issues ranging from stem cells to air pollution. But the political resonance of this subject has mostly died down during the Obama administration. Could this be because less than 10% of US scientists are Republicans? In any case, the fact is that Obama, like Bush before him, is not sacrificing his political agenda on the altar of science. Science is the wrong tool for solving political disputes.

26 | P a g e VOLUME 9

And why should he? When a problem is complex and the stakes are high, the relevant science can never be settled to the satisfaction of all parties it is always going to be politicized. This is not because all politicians are shameless toadies to special interests, but because science is the wrong tool for solving political disputes. Fuelling controversy The saga of high-level nuclear-waste disposal in the United States illustrates this fact with uncomfortable clarity. Starting in the early 1980s, the US Department of Energy (DOE) began evaluating sites for use as a waste repository. In 1987, Congress narrowed the assessment to a single location: Yucca Mountain. Although the scientific case for this site was fairly strong, the political case was stronger. Of the states being considered for repositories, Nevada, with the smallest population and weakest congressional delegation, provided the political path of least resistance. Science would show the way along that path. And so, over nearly 20 years, the DOE spent more than US$10 billion assessing the long-term safety of using the site. The state of Nevada led the opposition, mobilizing its own scientific experts to argue that the hydrological and tectonic setting of Yucca Mountain is too uncertain to guarantee safety over the coming millennia. Nonetheless, the Bush administration decided that almost two decades of governmentsponsored research sufficiently demonstrated the site's adequacy. In June 2008, it submitted an 8,600page application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a licence to construct the repository. In March this year, the Obama administration submitted a motion to the NRC to withdraw the still-pending licence application, thus reversing the Bush policy and contravening the scientific assessments of the DOE. What had changed? Not the science, but the politics. Since 2007, the Senate majority leader has been Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, who is staunchly opposed to the Yucca Mountain repository. Obama pledged during his election campaign to close down the Yucca Mountain programme a pledge he must keep if he is to have Reid's continued backing for the administration's ambitious political agenda. The saga is not over. On 29 June, the NRC's licensing board denied the motion to withdraw the application. Five groups, including several states and localities that store nuclear waste that they'd like to get rid of, are formally opposing the administration's effort to shut the programme down. Now the NRC must decide whether to uphold the board's denial thus keeping Yucca Mountain alive as a potential repository or allow the government to abandon the site permanently. The Swedish message Can science and politics ever work together to resolve complex problems such as nuclear-waste disposal? Consider the approach pursued in Sweden for the past 30 or so years. As in the United States, multiple sites were selected for technical evaluation. But rather than quickly converging on a single site, the possibilities were narrowed gradually, while candidate municipalities were closely involved in the selection process and given veto power. Three towns were chosen as finalists in 2000; one exercised its veto, and the winner was announced in 2009, with the two final towns sharing a $240 million reward (three-quarters of which is going to the loser). This imaginative process kept the politics ahead of the science. Candidate municipalities, which valued the economic benefits of hosting the site above the risks that it might present, were self-selecting and had an interest in making the best scientific case for a safe repository. The process was iterative and incremental, with public support sought along the way through inclusive politics rather than by trying to overcome opposition with a mounting body of science. In Sweden, science that was good enough to support the site selection process emerged relatively smoothly from this political arrangement. In the United States, a failed political approach led, instead, to science that fuelled controversy and gridlock. Successful science science that can support public goals 27 | P a g e VOLUME 9

is not just a matter of how sophisticated the models are or how well the probabilities are communicated to the public, but of the political context in which knowledge is generated and used. In social-science jargon, the Swedish science was 'socially robust'; the US science was not. The challenge is not to avoid politicizing science (which is impossible) but to politicize it wisely. The decade-long brouhaha over the politicization of science in the United States reflects an incorrigible cultural delusion: that if science were left alone to speak truth to power, it would exercise a p