Public Affairs
Senators Offer Amendment to Increase NIH Funding
Group Wants Government to Revoke PETA’s Tax Exemption
Institute of Medicine Recommends NIH Changes
APS to Sponsor Mass Media Fellowship
2003 APS Mass Media Fellow Alison Burggren
Senators Offer
Amendment To Increase NIH Funding
In September, when the Senate returned from its
summer recess, the first order of business was the Labor Health and Human
Services and Education (Labor HHS) appropriations bill, which funds the National
Institutes of Health (NIH). During floor consideration of this legislation,
Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
offered an amendment that would have added $1.5 billion to the NIH budget in
fiscal year (FY) 2004. This would have provided a $2.5 billion or 9.2% increase
over FY 2003 levels, consistent with what experts in the research community
believe is needed to sustain the momentum achieved during the recently completed
doubling. Unfortunately, this amendment failed by a vote of 52 to 43. (Under
Senate rules, 60 votes were necessary to pass this type of amendment.)
To win support to add new money, Senator Specter tried to
designate the funds as emergency spending that would not count towards the
agreed upon limit in the bill. However, this budget tactic angered Senator Kent
Conrad (D-ND) the Ranking Member on the Senate Budget Committee and others,
whose opposition doomed the amendment.
The Senate Appropriations Committee had recommended $26.8
billion for NIH in FY 2004. This $1 billion (3.7% increase) over FY 2003 levels
was far smaller than the 8%-10% increase advocated by the American Physiological
Society (APS), Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)
and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). NIH advocates Specter,
Harkin, and Feinstein had hoped to improve on that number. The House had already
voted on July 11, 2003 to provide NIH with a $26.6 billion budget in FY 2004. A
House-Senate conference committee must now reconcile the two NIH
recommendations.
In an effort to encourage all Senators to vote for the
Specter-Harkin-Feinstein amendment, the APS joined with over 500 health and
patient advocacy groups in signing a letter that called on Senators to support
this initiative. The APS also asked members living in the United States to
contact their Senators in support of the amendment. For more information on this
and other issues important to APS members, please visit the Legislative Action
Center at: http://www.the-aps.org/pa/.
Group Wants
Government to Revoke PETA’s Tax Exemption
The National Animal Interest Alliance (NAIA) is calling upon
the government to revoke the tax-exempt status of People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA) because of its support for individuals and
organizations that engage in illegal activities and violence. In early August
NAIA published a summary of PETA’s questionable activities on its website in an
article entitled “California arson fits terrorist pattern,” (http://www.naiaonline.org/body/ca_arson_terrorist(8-7-03).htm).
NAIA is inviting individuals to sign its petition.
NAIA describes itself as “an association of business,
agricultural, scientific, and recreational interests formed to protect and
promote humane practices and relationships between people and animals.”
NAIA first asked Congress in 1999 to seek an investigation of
the connection between tax-exempt groups such as PETA and extremist groups that
have committed illegal acts. NAIA requested that Congress direct the IRS to
“vigorously review the tax exempt status of organizations that advocate,
support, fund, or engage in unlawful activities.” It further called upon
Congress to ask the IRS to “investigate and take appropriate action to revoke
such classification when the facts so dictate and report such findings to
Congress.” The issue of concern is PETA’s relationship with the Animal
Liberation Front (ALF) and the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF).
In the FBI’s 1999 report Terrorism in the United States, the
ALF and ELF were described as “interrelated movements” that have “increasingly
engaged in vandalism, destruction of property, and other criminal activity (such
as the sending of parcels rigged with razor blades).” The NAIA website provides
a quote from the February 2002 Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report
noting that ALF and ELF members “have been involved with SHAC’s campaign to
harass employees of Huntingdon [Life Sciences] . . .with frankly terroristic
tactics similar to those of anti-abortion extremists.”
NAIA renewed its call for a government investigation in
August 2003 in the wake of an arson attack near San Diego. NAIA suggested the
possibility of a connection between the presence of ALF member and convicted
arsonist Rodney Coronado in San Diego on August 1 and a fire that caused $30
million in damage to an apartment building under construction in nearby
University City during the early hours of that day.
When firefighters reached the blaze, which had broken out at
about 3 a.m., they found a large banner proclaiming, “If you build it—we will
burn it—The E.L.F.’s are mad.” No injuries reported, but nearby buildings had to
be evacuated and some resident said that the intensity of the heat melted
portions of their plastic window blinds.
Coronado was in San Diego August 1 as a featured speaker at
the Animal Liberation Weekend program offered by a group called “Revolution
Summer San Diego.” A program flyer described Coronado as a “Radical Native
American and militant Animal Liberationist” who would speak about “militant
animal liberation and the defense of Mother Earth.” In 1995 Coronado was
sentenced to five years in prison for his role in a 1992 arson attack that
caused $1 million in damage to a Michigan State University fur research lab. The
arson was part of a series of attacks in an ALF campaign known as “Operation
Bite Back.” The MSU arson is one instance suggestive of a connection between
PETA and illegal ALF activities. According to the government’s sentencing
memorandum for Coronado, PETA made the public announcement about the MSU attack
and said that it was “acting as a media conduit for the ALF.”
In his San Diego speech Coronado denied any connection to the
August 1 apartment fire but defended those who had taken the action. “People
willing to risk their lives to protect the environment by destroying buildings
built on the habitat of endangered species make people take notice,” Coronado
said according to a report published online by Zenger’s, an alternative monthly
newsmagazine.
Zenger’s also reported that Coronado justified the use of
incendiary devices to destroy animal facilities. “Fire is a very sacred power,”
Coronado reportedly said. “We use fire to cleanse ourselves, and when we address
buildings and institutions that have no other purpose but to destroy life, fire
is the only way to stop them.”
On its website NAIA noted that while Coronado was a fugitive
sought in connection with the MSU arson, PETA gave his father a $25,000 loan
that has apparently never been repaid. After Coronado was apprehended, PETA
donated $45,000 to the Rodney Coronado Support Fund. In a February 2003
interview with ABC’s John Stossell, 2003, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk called
Coronado “a fine young man” and defended the use of its tax-exempt funds to
assist him.
“We gave him money for his defense because it is America and
you are entitled to a legal defense,” Newkirk said told Stossell in that
interview.
The NAIA website also notes that PETA gave $2,000 in 1999 to
David Wilson while he was the national spokesman for ALF and $5,000 in 2001 to a
support fund for Josh Harper, who was subsequently convicted in connection with
ELF fire bombings of several business in Utah.
While PETA’s support for individuals involved in illegal activities has provoked
a general sense of outrage, other nonprofit groups may advocate “illegal”
activities in the form of civil disobedience. In fact, many nonprofits support
legal defense funds for various causes, ranging from those who oppose abortion
to those who oppose capital punishment. Concerns have been raised about the
potential to politicize the IRS if it were in the position to decide which
organizations to investigate. Concerns have also been raised about the chilling
effect such authority might have on the exercise of free speech.
Nevertheless, NAIA insists that there are situations where extraordinary action
may be appropriate: “PETA gets a tax break while supporting terrorism,”
according to NAIA President Patti Strand.
For further information on the NAIA petition drive, see the NAIA website at
http://www.naiaonline.org.
Institute of Medicine
Recommends NIH Changes
On July 29, 2003, the Institute of Medicine (IOM)/National
Research Council (NRC) released a report recommending organizational changes at
the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Harold T. Shapiro, President Emeritus
and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University chaired
the Committee on the Organizational Structure of the National Institutes of
Health, which wrote the study.
The report, “Enhancing the Vitality of the National
Institutes of Health: Organizational Change to Meet New Challenges,” was
undertaken at the request of Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Tom Harkin
(D-IA). The Senators were concerned that the organizational structure of NIH—particularly
the increasing number of institutes and centers, which now total 27—had either
fragmented the agency or made it too unwieldy to effectively address the
research challenges now emerging on the biomedical research frontier.
The committee’s goal was to look at the organizational
structure of the NIH and see whether the agency could be made more effective.
“Despite the considerable achievements of NIH, important organizational changes
are needed for it to meet future challenges effectively,” Shapiro noted in
announcing the panel’s recommendations. “In particular, changes are required to
allow NIH to devote additional resources to innovative, interdisciplinary
research that reflects strategic objectives and cuts across many or all of the
agency’s institutes and centers,” he said. The committee came up with 14
recommendations designed to achieve this objective. The committee recommended
that the NIH Director, who is a Presidential appointee, should serve a six-year
term, unless removed sooner. A second six-year term would be contingent on a
performance review by outside experts and the recommendation of the secretary of
Health and Human Services. The committee also recommended that the directors of
the NIH institutes and centers be appointed to five-year terms with the option
of serving a second and final five-year term. Terms of these lengths would allow
the tenure of NIH officials to transcend political administrations.
Another objective of the recommendations was to grant the NIH
Director the power to quickly meet unanticipated needs. The committee
recommended that the Office of the Director should be given a more adequate
budget to support its management roles or greater discretionary authority to
reprogram funding. The committee also made other recommendations to enhance the
Director’s role. For example, it recommended that the power to hire and fire
Directors of Institutes and Centers be transferred from the secretary of Health
and Human Services to the Director of the NIH. It also recommended that the NIH
Director review the performance of institute and center directors annually.
In what may become a point of controversy, the committee
recommended that the NIH director be formally charged by Congress to develop
initiatives that cut across the purview of the multiple institutes and centers.
This type of research was considered especially important given the increasingly
interdisciplinary nature of science. Examples the committee gave included
proteomics and obesity, two areas that cut across many different NIH centers and
institutes. This recommendation was expected to be contentious because the
committee also recommended that Congress give the NIH Director the authority to
require the institutes and centers to commit a fixed percentage of their
extramural and intramural budgets for participation in trans-NIH research
initiatives identified through a strategic planning process.
The panel also focused on the role of translational research.
According to Shapiro, “The importance of clinical research in translating the
knowledge produced by basic science into improved health cannot be overstated,
but this translation is hampered by high costs, regulatory uncertainties,
incompatible databases, and a shortage of qualified investigators and willing
patient participants.” The panel therefore recommended that several intramural
and extramural clinical research programs be combined into a new entity called
the National Center for Clinical Research and Research Resources. This new
center would take over the clinical research role currently held by the National
Center for Research Resources.
In an effort to stimulate creative solutions to complex
medical problems, the committee recommended that the NIH Director be given a
special projects program budget. This program, similar to the Defense
Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), would fund risky
cutting edge research that offers a high potential payoff for society in terms
of cures and improved medical treatment. The committee recommended that Congress
provide $100 million for this program in the first year, with the budget
eventually growing to as much as $1 billion a year.
For a full copy of the report, please visit:
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309089670/html/.
APS to Sponsor 2004 Mass Media Fellowship
For the sixth consecutive year, APS will
sponsor an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Mass Media
Science and Engineering Fellow for summer 2004. Applications are due to the AAAS
by January 15, 2004.
The APS-sponsored fellow will be one of approximately two
dozen AAAS Mass Media fellows who will spend 10 weeks during the summer working
in the newsrooms of newspapers, magazines, Internet news outlets, and radio and
television stations. Fellows will receive a short training course in science
journalism prior to the fellowship, and will spend the summer developing their
ability to communicate complex scientific issues to non-scientists and improving
public understanding of science. The AAAS arranges placements at participating
media outlets as part of the selection process. The fellowship includes travel
to Washington for orientation and evaluation sessions at the beginning and end
of the summer, as well as travel to the job site and a weekly stipend based upon
local cost of living.
Individuals must be currently enrolled as a graduate or
postgraduate student of physiology or a related discipline to apply for the APS
fellowship. The application form is available in the “Student Awards” section of
the APS website at
http://www.the-aps.org/awards/student.htm#AAAS. Additional fellowships are
available for students in other scientific and engineering disciplines.
Information about the program is posted on the AAAS Education and Human
Resources Directorate website at
http://ehrweb.aaas.org/massmedia.htm. A brochure with additional information
about the program is also posted on both web sites.
In addition to the application form, applicants must submit a
current résumé, a three- to five-page sample of writing directed to the general
public, transcripts of graduate and undergraduate work, and three letters of
recommendation. Two of the recommendation letters should be from faculty
members, and the third should be a personal reference. The selection process is
designed to seek out qualified candidates especially from under-represented
communities, including African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and
scientists with disabilities.
For more information or to receive a copy of the application
by mail, contact Stacy Brooks in the APS Communications Office. (Tel.
301-634-7253; Email: sbrooks@the-aps.org).
2003 APS Mass
Media Fellow - Alison Burggren
This year’s APS-sponsored AAAS Mass Media Fellow was Alison
Burggren. Burggren, who is currently a PhD candidate at University of
California, Los Angeles, spent her summer at the Sacramento Bee.
Burggren enjoyed her summer as a science writer and learned
much about the profession of journalism. After presenting her dissertation in
December, she plans to pursue a career in science writing. The following article
details her summer as a Sacramento Bee reporter.
Science writing is an art. In the shortest amount of space
your editor can give you, you have to grab your reader’s attention, explain an
incredibly complicated idea, and say something that enriches your reader’s life
in the time they took to read the article. If you don’t, you’re not doing your
job and you’re wasting time and newsprint space—a very valuable commodity.
My summer started slowly, learning the ropes of the newsroom
and searching for story ideas. It took a couple of weeks to see my first story
in print, but after that it happened more frequently.
The newsroom was exactly like I’d imagined it. Filled with bustling activity by
late morning (no one gets in before 10 am around here—a shocker to a graduate
student used to reporting to work by 8 am at the latest), and the most chaotic
time was always 6 pm. I’ve been told the Sacramento Bee has the smallest amount
of space per reporter in the newsroom, which meant we were right on top of each
other’s desks. You quickly learn to give up any shred of privacy you have and
how to drown out other people’s phone conversations in order to focus on your
research and writing.
I spent the majority of my summer as a science intern at the
Sacramento Bee working intimately with the other science writer and medical
writer on staff. Both women were patient, supportive, and critical of me in a
way that made me feel like their equal (even if I lacked the 30 years of
experience they had between the two of them). They took me as a writer and
turned me into a journalist. One of them read every article I wrote and told me
how to make it better; tighter, more compelling, more relevant. By the end of
the summer I felt confident I could do this on my own and was told so by both
the writers and by my editor.
I learned that outside of crafting a story, a journalist’s
most important skill is creating a world of contacts. A large percentage of the
time, reporters cover stories pitched by lay people or by hospital and
university public information officers. It is time-consuming, yet ultimately
worthwhile, to cultivate these contacts and make certain that they recognize you
as the writer who should receive information on particular topics. This is
especially true of a locally-orientated paper like the Sacramento Bee since most
of our stories don’t come from national scientific websites or newswires for
journalists. Finding the local voice is extremely important.
Researching a story takes far more time than writing it does.
For me, writing was the easy part. Finding all the information and ensuring that
I wouldn’t get a call after the story had run saying I’d missed a huge fact was
always my biggest priority. During an orientation session, we were told
reporters always have 10 times the information that ever goes into a story. Now
I believe it’s double that. And quotes! From an hour-long conversation you might
get one great quote. But that makes the hour worth it because a great quote can
make a story.
I think the most critical part of this internship was showing
us why it’s important to communicate scientific ideas to the public, not just
how. The why came in the form of calls and emails from readers after my stories
ran. The feeling that someone took time out of their busy day to read your story
is a huge compliment and makes you feel justified in pushing forward through the
next story. Without that, you might as well be writing in a diary.
I honestly feel that I was probably luckier than most with
the choice of my site and would hope future interns get the privilege of being
placed at the Sacramento Bee. My editor was incredibly patient with me,
taking half hour breaks out of his busy day to review the edits he wanted to
make to my stories before making them. Not once did he ever change my articles
without running it by me first. From that exercise, I learned to write in a way
that needed less editing. I loved the smaller-sized newspaper environment and
felt that I learned so much more by working on a story one-on-one with another
writer or editor. I don’t think I would have gotten such personal attention from
a bigger newspaper.
The attention from the group that organized the internship,
the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), was a huge asset
too, especially the orientation. I got to orientation in a state of panic about
starting my first new job in four years. I left after three days in Washington,
DC, feeling totally prepared to start my internship. Reading everyone’s weekly
reports made me feel more justified in the range of emotions I experienced.
Other interns expressed my feelings, too: frustration over a story not getting
into the paper, elation at pitching a story idea of your own and seeing it
coming to fruition, awe at seeing your name on the front page, homesickness.
After such a simple three-day orientation meeting, we were intimately connected
through a cross-country network and by our shared experience in a field that
we’d never worked in before.
My personal goal for the summer was landing a front-page
story. Achieving that goal appeared to put me on the map in most everyone’s eyes
in the newsroom. The article was about a prostate study published in the New
England Journal of Medicine. It reported that the blood test most regularly
used for screening misses 82 percent of prostate cancers in men under 60. I
reached tens of thousands of people with that story. That was the day I realized
why I love journalism. It’s not only about writing for myself, but about sharing
what I’ve learned with others in a way that allows them to make their own
decisions. The calls I received that week from men thanking me for that story
touched my heart. The power of the media is awesome.
The medical journal stories that had very little human
interest to begin with were the most difficult stories for me. To personalize a
medical journal story is difficult and requires a lot of extra research. I had
the most fun with surgical procedure stories where I spent time watching the
surgery in scrubs while the doctor explained what he/she was doing. It was
fascinating to see every detail of the procedure and talk to the patient before
and after the operation was done. It made me feel compelled to relate the
experience to the reader in such a way that would bring this feeling to them
through the pages of the paper.
Overall I’d say I’m incredibly lucky to have been given this
opportunity and intend to use it to my fullest advantage in developing my career
as a science writer. I am so grateful to APS for funding this entire experience
for me and for sending Stacy Brooks and Alice Ra’anan to meet with me at
breakfasts and luncheons and see how I was doing. Their support made me realize
how much APS cares about my development as a science writer. I’ll be going back
to school at UCLA for the next three months, preparing for my dissertation
defense on December 1. After than I’m hoping to find employment as a science
writer—freelance, staff position, anything! As long as I continue working in
this field that I’ve fallen in love with I’ll be happy!
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