The holy grail of biomedical research is a “miracle” cure
for cancer. Not only would this discovery net the researcher a life changing
amount of money and worldwide fame, but it would also extend the
lives of the millions of patients who are diagnosed with cancer each year. In
her article in Vox, Julia Belluz discusses the multitude of articles about new
cancer treatments published with superlatives such as “miracle” or
“game-changer” and how the majority of these treatments are not FDA approved.
Additionally, many of these treatments do not even have human data to validate
their praise.
My question is: Is it a good or bad thing for biomedical
research for articles of this nature to be published so frequently with little
concrete clinical evidence to back their claims?
Claiming that every cancer treatment that shows even the
smallest potential for success is the next game changing, miracle drug could
ultimately create public distrust of the scientific community. Over time,
people will begin to question each article that they come across. They will
wonder, after years of hearing of these treatments, why their loved ones are
still dying of cancer. They will begin to think that the scientists behind
these studies pulling the wool over their eyes in an effort to fill their own
pockets with money. Ultimately, this could severely hamper the ability of the
biomedical community to do research due to lack of public support and a subsequent decrease in funding.
On the other hand, if these articles on potential “miracle” drugs are not published, the public may lose interest
in the research because they feel that no progress is being made. The lack of
hype around cancer research if these articles were not published could also
lead to public disinterest and an ultimate lack of funding for these studies
that are making progress towards the goal of curing cancer but are not quite
there.
What do we as scientist do to maintain interest in
biomedical research without lying to general public?
We focus not on where the research is currently, but instead
highlight where it has the potential to go. We generate hype by discussing hypothetical “miracle” cures. As long as
the superlative descriptors are used with the caveat that the drugs they
describe are still in development I feel that we can continue to drive public
interest in biomedical research without making fraudulent claims.
Your question is a good one, and one that I have thought about for a while, Cameron.
ReplyDeleteThere are some pros to publishing data about potentially useful drugs, and of course there are some cons.
However, I think you assume the public to be more unforgiving of science than they actually are. For instance, I definitely believe that publishing the wet-bench assay potential for some cancer drugs without clinical trial data is useful for the scientific community as a whole. It can get scientists across disciplines to think about ways a certain chemical can be beneficial, even outside of the disease state. Remember, science, and especially PhD work, is carving out a niche. This is done in incremental steps (and missteps); scientists are never perfect. I think this obviously crosses a line when fraudulent data is published, but nothing can hurt if potential drugs are screened. After all, the layperson who may read the article won't end up coming to a conclusion that this is a cure -- I trust scientists to use more exact jargon in their publications.
A con to publishing all about the potential of these drugs may not be that the public loses trust, but maybe that the scientific community loses focus. Instead of concerted effort to find the most effective drug, we publish all drug effects. This is a misallocation of resources in my opinion, and not a good use of time -- especially if the problem of cancer is pressing.
Finally, I think your final question puts too much onus on the scientist to do the work of driving public interest. I see this as the job of the media. If scientists have a more concentrated effort on the drugs that work, and depth of that work with that drug is motivated by funding or other incentives, then the scientific community should worry about how our links to the public are behaving, not how scientists are behaving. Let's be honest, when was the last time you had a truly great science professor who was able to connect real life examples to laboratory experiments? It's rare! Therefore, it shouldn't be a scientist's main objective. However, scientists should keep the media accountable for their publications -- and the media should be actively communicating with scientists for clarity's sake.
Thanks for posting. Personally, I strongly dislike media articles boasting about a new "miracle drug" for cancer, or what have you. To me they make the work we do seem flashy and trivial. We know this couldn't be further from the truth. This takes me back to earlier in the semester, when we talked about irreproducibility in scientific results which may make the public distrustful of science. The repercussions of this could include reducing our chances for getting more funding, etc. I would argue that science literacy needs to become a part of general education, or, scientifically literate people need to go into media, politics, and other related fields. Blogs such as this one, written by scientists for a general audience can help shed light to the public as to why science advancement is a slow process. And we absolutely need to fix the irreproducibility issue by fixing the way we approach experimental design.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting. Personally, I strongly dislike media articles boasting about a new "miracle drug" for cancer, or what have you. To me they make the work we do seem flashy and trivial. We know this couldn't be further from the truth. This takes me back to earlier in the semester, when we talked about irreproducibility in scientific results which may make the public distrustful of science. The repercussions of this could include reducing our chances for getting more funding, etc. I would argue that science literacy needs to become a part of general education, or, scientifically literate people need to go into media, politics, and other related fields. Blogs such as this one, written by scientists for a general audience can help shed light to the public as to why science advancement is a slow process. And we absolutely need to fix the irreproducibility issue by fixing the way we approach experimental design.
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