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On Research Into Ebola
Sep. 16th, 2015 10:33 pmVery late as usual.
One of the things that struck me about the coverage of the ebola outbreak was how badly the news covered the question of "why don't more scientists work on ebola?" Mostly the news outlets raised it and then didn't go any further, or they did their usual trick of answering it by going and speaking to a Humanities grad. Now I realise scientists are their own worst enemy in this regard, because they'd rather bite off their own tongues then talk to the press but ...
As I see it, there are three main reasons why more people don't work on ebola, none of which I recall being mentioned. Now they might not be good reasons, but they are reasons.
1 - Lack of Opportunity
Wikipedia has a list of Biosafety Level 4 labs here. While Wikipedia admits the list is incomplete, and I know they're missing a couple, it's reasonably accurate. Very few labs are able to work on ebola, reducing the number of scientists who can work on it.
2 - How Much Do You Trust Your Sterile Technique?
Or, more pertinently, do you trust it with your life and the lives of your nearest and dearest?
I work in a category 2 lab. I work with GMO E. coli that you could probably bathe in without it causing any problems. The various lab oopses that happen are not dangerous. This is not the case with ebola. I most certainly don't trust my lab skills to deal with ebola, and I doubt I'm alone.
3 - The Publication Problem
Remember how I said these were not necessarily good? This is why.
If you're an academic biologist, you live and die by your publication record. For a variety of reasons, the "big" journals are very wary of publishing anything that could be used for bioterrorism (e.g. info on new strains of botulism - http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/10/11/230957188/why-scientists-held-back-details-on-a-unique-botulinum-toxin or on the likely way bird flu could mutate to become virulent in human - http://www.nature.com/news/mutant-flu-paper-published-1.10551) If you do work on ebola, you'd better hope the government (or one of the various funding bodies) will keep funding you despite gaps in your publication record, because if they don't, you can find yourself severely unemployed and unemployable.
One of the things that struck me about the coverage of the ebola outbreak was how badly the news covered the question of "why don't more scientists work on ebola?" Mostly the news outlets raised it and then didn't go any further, or they did their usual trick of answering it by going and speaking to a Humanities grad. Now I realise scientists are their own worst enemy in this regard, because they'd rather bite off their own tongues then talk to the press but ...
As I see it, there are three main reasons why more people don't work on ebola, none of which I recall being mentioned. Now they might not be good reasons, but they are reasons.
1 - Lack of Opportunity
Wikipedia has a list of Biosafety Level 4 labs here. While Wikipedia admits the list is incomplete, and I know they're missing a couple, it's reasonably accurate. Very few labs are able to work on ebola, reducing the number of scientists who can work on it.
2 - How Much Do You Trust Your Sterile Technique?
Or, more pertinently, do you trust it with your life and the lives of your nearest and dearest?
I work in a category 2 lab. I work with GMO E. coli that you could probably bathe in without it causing any problems. The various lab oopses that happen are not dangerous. This is not the case with ebola. I most certainly don't trust my lab skills to deal with ebola, and I doubt I'm alone.
3 - The Publication Problem
Remember how I said these were not necessarily good? This is why.
If you're an academic biologist, you live and die by your publication record. For a variety of reasons, the "big" journals are very wary of publishing anything that could be used for bioterrorism (e.g. info on new strains of botulism - http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/10/11/230957188/why-scientists-held-back-details-on-a-unique-botulinum-toxin or on the likely way bird flu could mutate to become virulent in human - http://www.nature.com/news/mutant-flu-paper-published-1.10551) If you do work on ebola, you'd better hope the government (or one of the various funding bodies) will keep funding you despite gaps in your publication record, because if they don't, you can find yourself severely unemployed and unemployable.
