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Nobel Prize For Medicine Awarded, Physics Soon To Follow
Nobel Prize season is here again, and the first award for Physiology or Medicine was split between two virologists who discovered HIV and one who demonstrated that a virus causes cervical cancer. Coming soon is the announcement for Physics. Look to the right for a chance to pit your selection wit against the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences with a poll for which scientific achievement deserves the prize. Front runners, according to Reuters, are; Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, discovers of graphene, Vera Rubin, provider of the best evidence yet of dark matter, and Roger Penrose and Dan Shechtman, discoverers of Penrose tilings and quasicrystals.
In the 80's Robert Gallo was celebrated as the discoverer of HIV and that, oh yeah, maybe
some French scientists helped too. Turns out Mr. Gallo either intentionally or mistakenly
(through cross-contamination in a sloppy lab) cultivated a sample of the French-discovered
strain of the virus. Even after he should have realized a mistake, he misled people and
caused the United States blood supply to use a much poorer HIV test (than the French one)
and as a result people needlessly died. His claims of original discovery ultimately fell
apart because HIV mutates with amazing rapidity, and so his HIV strains were traceable to
the French one his so closely matched.
The book "Science Fictions" by John Crewdson is worth your time to read. It's a long read,
not an easy read, but I got hooked.
Have you wondered why some less technically talented coworkers are able to influence
management and, even worse, make you the fall guy when things go wrong? I think this book
gave me insight into that.
If Mr. Gallo had only half the talent for science as he did for obfuscation, he would've
been a great scientist indeed.
I did a paper on some of these topics in 1990. In short:
1) the American scientist was a dickhead
2) Even at the time of his "discovery", it was suspected that the lab had stolen the sample from the French - I think they settled on "contamination" so that it wouldn't turn into a political incident (this happened at NIH)
3) The elephant in the room was money - there was a metric fuckton of money to be made for the people to develop a test for HIV that could be applied to the blood supply. The French and the American basically split it.
4) The American scientist made out like a bandidt - not only did he recieve credit where he shouldn't have, the NIH built him a WHOLE BUILDING to be his sandbox.
It is some small measure of justice that the Nobel committee awarded the prise thusly. Too bad the people who award the non-scientific prizes have no such measure of judgment.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Most HPV infections do not lead to cervical cancer.
Most cervical cancers are caused by HPV.
These two statements are logically consistent.
The mechanism of action is even known: HPV blocks the action of tumor-suppressing gene p53.
Please stop spreading misinformation.
1. You're not supposed to take the vaccine if you've already been exposed to HPV. That's why they only prescribe it to young girls - not older people.
2. There is a genetic component to the risk from HPV.
3. Yes, the HPV virus itself causes the cancer. It messes with apoptosis gene expression, causing the cells to proliferate without the normal cell death mechanism kicking in.
Coming soon - pyrogyra