1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:29,920 Revealed in upcoming episodes of this program are the contents of a recently 2 00:00:29,920 --> 00:00:36,920 unearthed repository classified by the secret government, the Phenomenon Archives. 3 00:00:59,920 --> 00:01:29,080 In the past century, humanity has been pulled from the furnace of worldwide epidemics and 4 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:34,880 saved from the clutches of military dictatorships by the men and women of science. 5 00:01:34,880 --> 00:01:39,360 Now that we've come to consider them almost venerable, what if we were to discover that 6 00:01:39,360 --> 00:01:44,520 the attitudes of these professionals have taken a turn toward the darker side? 7 00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:49,180 Are the people of science today serving an agenda of integrity or some vast corporate 8 00:01:49,180 --> 00:01:53,980 policy wherein the consumer is the unwitting guinea pig for the testing of profit making 9 00:02:19,180 --> 00:02:28,340 the world? 10 00:02:28,340 --> 00:02:34,740 In December of 1912, Charles Dawson, a lawyer and amateur geologist, announces to the amazement 11 00:02:34,740 --> 00:02:40,300 of the world that he has uncovered in a gravel bed near Luz, England what appears to be the 12 00:02:40,300 --> 00:02:43,380 skull of an ancient human being. 13 00:02:43,380 --> 00:02:48,540 The world regales Dawson with the laurels of international celebrity, touting his discovery 14 00:02:48,540 --> 00:02:55,860 as the long sought after missing link, the evolutionary bridge between ape and man. 15 00:02:55,860 --> 00:03:00,260 The British Empire's scientists who could not previously lay claim to a single major 16 00:03:00,260 --> 00:03:04,260 archaeological find are at last vindicated. 17 00:03:04,260 --> 00:03:08,660 The discovery of the Piltdown Man becomes the most prestigious archaeological find of 18 00:03:08,660 --> 00:03:11,740 its day. 19 00:03:11,740 --> 00:03:18,820 In 1953, nearly 40 years after Dawson's dramatic breakthrough, chemical analysis of Piltdown 20 00:03:18,820 --> 00:03:25,700 Man's remains revealed that the very establishment which authenticated the find was duped in 21 00:03:25,700 --> 00:03:31,540 one of the greatest deceptions of all time, the Piltdown Man hoax. 22 00:03:31,540 --> 00:03:38,180 Ultimately, it is determined that the cranium belongs to a modern human being and the jawbone 23 00:03:38,180 --> 00:03:40,220 to an orangutan. 24 00:03:40,220 --> 00:03:43,980 Which is skillfully altered to appear prehistoric. 25 00:03:43,980 --> 00:03:49,180 The ensuing revision of history books and archaeological reference materials prove costly, 26 00:03:49,180 --> 00:03:55,020 but the cost and credibility to the scientific community is inestimable. 27 00:03:55,020 --> 00:03:56,260 There's corruption in any field. 28 00:03:56,260 --> 00:04:00,980 I mean, there are great people and there are people that are somewhat corrupt in any field. 29 00:04:00,980 --> 00:04:02,340 Science is no different. 30 00:04:02,340 --> 00:04:03,940 Does fraud occasionally happen? 31 00:04:03,940 --> 00:04:05,940 Yes, it occasionally happens. 32 00:04:06,140 --> 00:04:11,140 Oh God, I could spend an entire day telling you about the science and research fraud that 33 00:04:11,140 --> 00:04:13,340 my colleagues and I know about. 34 00:04:13,340 --> 00:04:17,340 The famous case of the Wright brothers, was it the New York Times, said that they were 35 00:04:17,340 --> 00:04:21,340 committing a fraud the day before they actually flew their plane? 36 00:04:36,340 --> 00:04:42,740 Most of the disciplined rigors of science go on behind closed doors, beyond the inquiring 37 00:04:42,740 --> 00:04:44,540 eyes of the public. 38 00:04:44,540 --> 00:04:50,540 Nevertheless, scientists in their often solitary quest for new knowledge enjoy an almost hallowed 39 00:04:50,540 --> 00:04:51,540 admiration. 40 00:04:51,540 --> 00:04:57,820 They are granted a virtual hands-off policy by our modern world to create, advance and 41 00:04:57,820 --> 00:05:00,900 mold the future of civilization. 42 00:05:00,900 --> 00:05:06,380 I think that the society does have the concept that scientists are purer than other people 43 00:05:06,380 --> 00:05:11,580 and they're omniscient and for that reason they can do no wrong. 44 00:05:11,580 --> 00:05:18,380 Given this revered social standing, the field of science is now more competitive than ever. 45 00:05:18,380 --> 00:05:24,660 There is enormous pressure on scientists to obtain grant funding. 46 00:05:24,660 --> 00:05:28,300 It is very demanding. 47 00:05:28,300 --> 00:05:33,300 The process is nerve-wracking for scientists. 48 00:05:33,300 --> 00:05:37,020 In most universities now you can't really do the research you want to do unless you have 49 00:05:37,020 --> 00:05:41,060 funding for it and funding is more and more difficult to get. 50 00:05:41,060 --> 00:05:48,860 So at places like MIT you have to go where the money is even to publish. 51 00:05:48,860 --> 00:05:54,660 In the mainstream media of today, tales of science fraud abound. 52 00:05:54,660 --> 00:06:01,020 Some of the most classical cases that I can think of, first was a psychiatrist from Arcadia, 53 00:06:01,020 --> 00:06:06,740 California who falsely claimed that a drug, T-H-A, was a treatment for Alzheimer's and 54 00:06:06,740 --> 00:06:12,780 subsequently created a tremendous demand for this drug. 55 00:06:12,780 --> 00:06:19,140 But he was busted by one of my colleagues at the FDA who forced him to retract his results. 56 00:06:19,140 --> 00:06:23,420 Another case involves four pharmaceutical companies caught making payments to a top government 57 00:06:23,420 --> 00:06:28,460 researcher to secure his assistance in accessing confidential research he is conducting at 58 00:06:28,460 --> 00:06:31,740 the National Institutes of Health. 59 00:06:31,740 --> 00:06:37,260 And in a court of law, one group of industry-sponsored scientists stands behind their shameless, 60 00:06:37,260 --> 00:06:43,740 quote, conclusive research, unquote, that cigarette smoking is in no way harmful to 61 00:06:43,740 --> 00:06:45,100 human health. 62 00:06:45,100 --> 00:06:50,820 There was a junior researcher at the Harvard Medical School who published 18 major articles 63 00:06:50,820 --> 00:06:55,900 in 100 abstracts, most of which were completely bogus. 64 00:06:55,900 --> 00:07:00,460 He was fleshed out by another colleague of mine from the National Institutes of Health, 65 00:07:00,460 --> 00:07:02,300 Walter Stewart. 66 00:07:02,300 --> 00:07:07,860 Stewart was also caught a professor at the University of California at San Diego who 67 00:07:07,860 --> 00:07:13,340 was writing papers at a rate of one every ten days and they were all based on complete 68 00:07:13,340 --> 00:07:14,860 fabrications. 69 00:07:14,860 --> 00:07:18,740 He was forced to withdraw and retract 15 of these papers. 70 00:07:18,740 --> 00:07:23,620 Unfortunately, the field of science is strewn with cases like this. 71 00:07:23,620 --> 00:07:28,620 There are more than one million practitioners of science in the United States alone. 72 00:07:28,620 --> 00:07:33,820 These men and women are for the most part actively engaged in the advancement of prosperity. 73 00:07:33,820 --> 00:07:39,420 Yet critics argue that science is too often done as fast practice. 74 00:07:39,420 --> 00:07:43,740 That these same scientists we have learned to depend on are guilty of cutting corners 75 00:07:43,740 --> 00:07:47,380 by rushing results in order to get their papers published. 76 00:07:47,380 --> 00:07:52,860 Their research ideas funded and beat out their peers in an ongoing struggle for fame, 77 00:07:52,860 --> 00:07:56,060 glory and financial reward. 78 00:07:56,060 --> 00:08:00,620 No, science is not a career for the faint of heart. 79 00:08:00,620 --> 00:08:04,660 Does it follow then that in a society where financial gain is considered the ultimate 80 00:08:04,660 --> 00:08:09,140 praise, the temptation to cheat has become too mighty? 81 00:08:09,140 --> 00:08:14,380 Has the reality of science fraud become so commonplace that fudging research is an accepted 82 00:08:14,380 --> 00:08:15,380 norm? 83 00:08:15,380 --> 00:08:21,460 An astronomer faking the discovery of an unknown star may set planetary science back years 84 00:08:21,460 --> 00:08:25,280 as the piltdown scam did to the field of archaeology. 85 00:08:25,280 --> 00:08:30,500 The ramifications of fudged research in other fields of science, however, foretell a much 86 00:08:30,500 --> 00:08:35,860 greater danger to our world and to individual human life. 87 00:08:35,860 --> 00:08:42,020 Well, the whole reason why agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the National 88 00:08:42,020 --> 00:08:47,020 Science Foundation and the Food and Drug Administration and many others have reviewers 89 00:08:47,020 --> 00:08:52,380 to scrutinize the work done by researchers is because of the extreme dangers to the public 90 00:08:52,380 --> 00:08:54,220 of faulty research. 91 00:08:54,220 --> 00:09:00,340 I'm aware of a number of faulty drug studies that were contaminated and biased either deliberately 92 00:09:00,340 --> 00:09:05,940 or unintentionally, testing certain drugs on patients with a variety of ailments that 93 00:09:05,940 --> 00:09:11,460 ended up as articles in medical journals only to have been retracted later. 94 00:09:11,460 --> 00:09:15,820 If an innocent doctor had read any of these articles, they may well have prescribed that 95 00:09:15,820 --> 00:09:19,900 drug to a patient and ended up making things much worse. 96 00:09:19,900 --> 00:09:20,900 Good morning. 97 00:09:20,900 --> 00:09:21,900 Good morning, sir. 98 00:09:21,900 --> 00:09:25,540 Do you mind showing your throat to these men? 99 00:09:25,540 --> 00:09:31,420 No, sir. 100 00:09:31,420 --> 00:09:35,220 Medical research and the development of new physical and drug therapies are specialty 101 00:09:35,220 --> 00:09:37,920 areas of scientific study. 102 00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:43,280 As the potential financial gains to drug companies working in this arena are so vast, experts 103 00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:47,920 complain that the tendency toward conflict of interest is increased. 104 00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:52,240 Such has certainly been the case in the area of AIDS research. 105 00:09:52,240 --> 00:09:58,020 We have multiple interest, multi-billion dollar international companies coming into the field 106 00:09:58,020 --> 00:10:04,480 because they see the potential of offering the public all their drugs as the cure. 107 00:10:04,480 --> 00:10:08,600 While drugs have not been the cure, the drugs have been a cure for heart disease, diet and 108 00:10:08,600 --> 00:10:10,760 lifestyle change has been. 109 00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:13,880 Drugs have not been the cure for cancer, prevention has been the cure. 110 00:10:13,880 --> 00:10:18,120 I have just perfected a new remedy for locomotor attacks here. 111 00:10:18,120 --> 00:10:20,720 This has taken me years of research. 112 00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:24,080 You've been prescribing new medicines for me for a long time. 113 00:10:24,080 --> 00:10:27,840 I've paid you over two thousand dollars. 114 00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:33,840 Mr. Spencer, I'd sooner cut off my right arm up to there than take another dollar from 115 00:10:33,840 --> 00:10:37,800 you if you've lost faith in my ability or my integrity. 116 00:10:37,800 --> 00:10:40,160 You don't make money when people become well. 117 00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:43,160 You make money when people stay sick. 118 00:10:43,160 --> 00:10:47,000 It's like the old analogy that Humpty Dumpty fell off a wall and all you needed was more 119 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:48,920 horses, more soldiers. 120 00:10:48,920 --> 00:10:50,680 We had the same analogy with healthcare. 121 00:10:50,680 --> 00:10:54,680 All we need for health is more hospitals, more doctors, more diagnostic tests. 122 00:10:54,680 --> 00:10:58,760 I don't mind putting out the money if I could only get better. 123 00:10:58,760 --> 00:11:02,840 But losing faith in me isn't going to make you feel any better, is it now? 124 00:11:02,840 --> 00:11:06,520 You don't have investigative reporters going in there to say, all right, before you offer 125 00:11:06,520 --> 00:11:11,880 the public anything and before you manipulate the media to act as your propagandist, let's 126 00:11:11,880 --> 00:11:13,920 put it to the test. 127 00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:18,640 No one's doing that because it's considered medicine as a sacred cow. 128 00:11:18,640 --> 00:11:21,440 Doctors are the high priests of this religion. 129 00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:24,680 And as a result, nobody challenges them. 130 00:11:24,680 --> 00:11:26,280 I'm sorry, doctor. 131 00:11:26,280 --> 00:11:28,120 I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. 132 00:11:28,120 --> 00:11:34,800 Now what has happened is that the media is now running from company to company's press 133 00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:39,880 conferences, heralding the advent of some new miracle breakthrough. 134 00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:45,360 Well, maybe since you put so much time on the new medicine, I ought to give it a fair 135 00:11:45,360 --> 00:11:46,360 trial. 136 00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:51,120 Instantaneous journalism, where they'll run out without any knowledge or background on 137 00:11:51,120 --> 00:11:56,480 a subject and trust the scientists or doctors for a company or a governmental agency to be 138 00:11:56,480 --> 00:11:57,480 the experts. 139 00:11:57,480 --> 00:11:59,520 I just follow the directions. 140 00:11:59,520 --> 00:12:04,600 Each bottle will last you three days and all of your troubles will be over. 141 00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:08,320 Official science has never been good science. 142 00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:12,000 They've never won a major war, not the war on cancer, not the war on AIDS, not the war 143 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:13,960 on heart disease, not the war on arthritis. 144 00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:15,840 There's no cure for any of those. 145 00:12:15,840 --> 00:12:18,360 But it's like the official story. 146 00:12:18,360 --> 00:12:21,560 It's what serves the interests of those in power. 147 00:12:21,560 --> 00:12:28,200 As in the case of Viagra and FinFinn, the relentless hunt for financial gain seems, once again, 148 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:30,760 to be at the core of these problems. 149 00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:35,080 And the difficulty, I think, is that business people have very different motivations from 150 00:12:35,080 --> 00:12:36,480 scientists. 151 00:12:36,480 --> 00:12:40,760 And in the end, money makes the communication between the two very difficult. 152 00:12:40,760 --> 00:12:45,400 The business people are interested in, you know, the bottom line. 153 00:12:45,400 --> 00:12:48,640 How does the company, how can they make the company most profitable? 154 00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:54,320 Whereas the research scientists are interested in developing a neat technology, a new product. 155 00:12:54,320 --> 00:12:57,680 How can this technology help cure diseases and things? 156 00:12:57,680 --> 00:13:01,960 So there's a great barrier to having the two mesh. 157 00:13:01,960 --> 00:13:09,680 With media coverage growing more invasive, accessibility of information is adding to 158 00:13:09,680 --> 00:13:13,280 the public's awareness of science and how research is conducted. 159 00:13:13,280 --> 00:13:16,480 This new knowledge has made the public wary. 160 00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:20,800 Here is replacing confidence, and instead of celebrating the merits of scientific advancement, 161 00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:26,600 there's a general reluctance to accept scientific results at face value. 162 00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:29,960 The scientific process has changed over the years. 163 00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:34,560 For scientists, professional advancement has always been tied to productivity. 164 00:13:34,560 --> 00:13:38,680 But these days, productivity is too often measured by the amount of money a scientist 165 00:13:38,680 --> 00:13:41,320 can gather for research. 166 00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:45,760 Scientists are thereby pressured on two fronts, from their employers who expect a continuing 167 00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:51,120 flow of grant money, and from grant-giving bodies who demand profitable results. 168 00:13:51,120 --> 00:13:57,480 Well, modern science is now being heavily funded by institutions, multinational corporations 169 00:13:57,480 --> 00:13:58,760 and government agencies. 170 00:13:58,760 --> 00:14:05,280 And the competition and demand for funding is astonishing and just growing at an alarming 171 00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:06,280 rate. 172 00:14:06,280 --> 00:14:11,880 In this age of billion-dollar atom smashers and multi-million-dollar magnetic resonance 173 00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:18,880 imaging devices, the complexity and costs of research and maintaining the most up-to-date 174 00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:24,240 technology are expanding at exponential rates. 175 00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:28,400 Not at all like the old days of Charles Darwin or Isaac Newton. 176 00:14:28,400 --> 00:14:31,520 No money, no research, I'm afraid. 177 00:14:31,520 --> 00:14:37,040 Now even the largest of institutional grants cannot satisfy the ever-expanding appetite 178 00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:39,440 for research dollars. 179 00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:43,240 Sometimes the money is set aside solely for universities, sometimes it's set aside solely 180 00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:47,000 for business, sometimes solely for government laboratories, sometimes anybody can go after 181 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:48,000 it. 182 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:51,040 And so we write proposals to government agencies. 183 00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:54,440 We're usually in competition with all these other organizations. 184 00:14:54,440 --> 00:14:58,560 The win rate right now is somewhere between 5% and 8% of the proposals that are turned 185 00:14:58,560 --> 00:15:00,360 in actually get funded. 186 00:15:00,360 --> 00:15:04,200 I wonder about whether or not they have to find... 187 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:08,880 Even scientists find themselves going up against much younger, comparatively inexperienced 188 00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:14,080 challengers, each competing for finite funds in a glutted field. 189 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:19,760 This competition for grants, status and position makes the temptation to veer off the path 190 00:15:19,760 --> 00:15:21,920 difficult to resist. 191 00:15:21,920 --> 00:15:28,520 Right now I'm looking for a job just because we are running out of the grant and chances 192 00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:32,160 of getting the grant is highly competitive. 193 00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:37,200 Only a livelihood is dependent upon the procurement of grant funding. 194 00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:42,360 Scientists fortunate enough to win this coveted cash find themselves hamstrung by the prerequisites 195 00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:44,800 of their patrons. 196 00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:48,360 Relationships develop which many consider unhealthy. 197 00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:54,020 Anytime a company like Pfizer funds a researcher there is usually a contracting that goes on 198 00:15:54,020 --> 00:15:58,960 between the two as to where the restrictions are, what the specific outcomes are. 199 00:15:58,960 --> 00:16:01,160 Is there an expected outcome for the investment? 200 00:16:01,160 --> 00:16:02,800 Yes, there would be. 201 00:16:02,800 --> 00:16:06,320 But you're talking about hundreds and hundreds, thousands of people, hundreds of thousands 202 00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:10,240 of hours investment in bringing any single product to marketplace. 203 00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:14,400 With such extraordinary amounts of money at stake, grant recipients are subjected to 204 00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:19,720 such microscopic scrutiny by their benefactors that the possibility of failure can barely 205 00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:21,160 be entertained. 206 00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:28,720 Obviously, with the prospects of billions of dollars of profit at stake with the development 207 00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:35,720 of a new drug or new technology, grant recipients are subjected to massive scrutiny by their 208 00:16:35,720 --> 00:16:37,600 patrons and supporters. 209 00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:42,920 I've always felt that this kind of relationship between sponsor and researcher inevitably 210 00:16:42,920 --> 00:16:46,520 leads to major conflicts of interest. 211 00:16:46,520 --> 00:16:55,040 Scientists, those honorable, distinguished people who diligently focus on solving the 212 00:16:55,040 --> 00:17:00,120 most complicated of problems, selflessly throwing themselves at the inequities of a 213 00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:02,360 savage work. 214 00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:06,840 Now we see that at least those in the private sector, those working for corporations, for 215 00:17:06,840 --> 00:17:13,320 instance, are subject to the same ethical dilemmas we are all forced to face. 216 00:17:13,320 --> 00:17:18,280 But how about those unimpeachable professors, the men and women covered by the security 217 00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:21,080 blanket of university life? 218 00:17:21,080 --> 00:17:23,840 How do they fare in all of this? 219 00:17:23,840 --> 00:17:33,240 The individual who is able to attract grant funding, and particularly grant funding, repetitively, 220 00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:40,640 is viewed as being someone who is desirable to retain on one's faculty and certainly 221 00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:42,120 to promote. 222 00:17:42,120 --> 00:17:46,200 Just one of the many examples I can think of is that of a research at the University 223 00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:51,600 of Paris who came up with absolutely outrageous claims of a homeopathic medicine that was 224 00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:56,920 discovered to be bogus by my colleague at the National Institutes of Health. 225 00:17:56,920 --> 00:18:01,460 It was little surprised to find out that this researcher was funded by a homeopathic medicine 226 00:18:01,460 --> 00:18:02,960 manufacturing company. 227 00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:09,520 These university scientists are very independent and very rigorous in their approach to science 228 00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:19,280 and quite frankly are not as profit driven and therefore basically will analyze data 229 00:18:19,280 --> 00:18:25,920 in an appropriate manner and they will not be biased just because they have a certain 230 00:18:25,920 --> 00:18:29,040 amount of grant support from a pharmaceutical firm. 231 00:18:29,040 --> 00:18:34,480 The industry being involved in university research is a double-edged sword. 232 00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:43,880 There is the fear that there will be some interjection of their agenda into the research. 233 00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:49,080 Are they somewhat restricted and they can't say they're going to do research on ABC and 234 00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:54,080 then decide to do research on XYZ without the involvement and the approval of the person 235 00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:55,080 funding it? 236 00:18:55,080 --> 00:18:58,280 Sure, they shouldn't be allowed to do that. 237 00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:03,040 Given this environment, does the potential for objective scientific research really 238 00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:04,720 exist? 239 00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:09,440 What incentive is there for a scientist to research a lackluster group of findings if 240 00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:14,200 these will only result in his being passed over the next time deep pocketed corporations 241 00:19:14,200 --> 00:19:17,480 come courting? 242 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:22,400 It should come as no surprise then that many scientific researchers are becoming less concerned 243 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:28,360 about whether data is contaminated considering instead what can be done with contaminated 244 00:19:28,360 --> 00:19:29,360 data. 245 00:19:29,360 --> 00:19:36,080 Because if there's anywhere that science could be more corrupt, it would be within the company 246 00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:41,080 itself because there those scientists are really profit motivated. 247 00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:46,680 Despite these consequences, the lure of short term gain through fudged research is undeniable 248 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:51,120 and once indulged becomes science fraud. 249 00:19:51,120 --> 00:19:56,800 Although incidents of science fraud have increased in recent years, this is not a new problem. 250 00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:01,520 Some of the biggest names in history have pulled off some of the biggest scams. 251 00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:07,240 It is widely known, for example, that Isaac Newton, father of modern physics, intentionally 252 00:20:07,240 --> 00:20:12,040 skewed data to make the work of a rival appear less important. 253 00:20:12,040 --> 00:20:17,440 Since his competitors philosophy clashed with his own theory of universal gravitation, Newton 254 00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:23,200 improved some of his calculations on the velocity of sound and precision of the equinoxes to 255 00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:26,680 overshadow and malign the work of his challenger. 256 00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:32,400 The 19th century monk Abbey Gregor Mendel founded modern gene theory through the breeding 257 00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:35,040 and cross breeding of pea plants. 258 00:20:35,040 --> 00:20:40,320 His results were so suspiciously perfect, however, that they prompted a later investigation 259 00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:46,680 which revealed that Mendel had tailored his data to help justify his theories. 260 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:51,680 In a modern day example of scientific discovery going wrong, the results of the cold fusion 261 00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:58,680 experiments of Stanley Ponds and Martin Fleischman were rushed into the public arena. 262 00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:04,280 Fusion reactions occur when two hydrogen atoms become so hot that they fuse together, releasing 263 00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:06,600 a tremendous amount of energy. 264 00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:12,320 The current technology demands that more energy has to be put into a reaction than comes out. 265 00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:14,880 It hasn't been economically viable. 266 00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:20,120 However, Stanley Ponds of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischman of the University 267 00:21:20,120 --> 00:21:26,240 of Southampton claimed that they could create a fusion reaction at room temperature and 268 00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:33,240 make fusion energy a reality with the potential of making uncounted billions of energy dollars. 269 00:21:33,800 --> 00:21:38,360 When a colleague working at a nearby university threatens to undermine Ponds and Fleischman's 270 00:21:38,360 --> 00:21:43,880 claim to their cold fusion discovery by going public with proprietary information, the two 271 00:21:43,880 --> 00:21:50,160 respected chemists are compelled by peers and legal advisors to bypass scientific convention 272 00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:53,120 and the accepted practices of the peer review system. 273 00:21:53,120 --> 00:21:56,200 There's a hypothesis, an idea. 274 00:21:56,200 --> 00:22:00,080 The idea is tested in the laboratory. 275 00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:02,520 It's written up in a journal. 276 00:22:02,520 --> 00:22:07,440 It undergoes peer review, which means people, experts in the field, look at that information. 277 00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:08,880 They test its validity. 278 00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:11,000 They ask questions about its validity. 279 00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:12,960 Then it's published in the journal. 280 00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:16,480 Then of course the scientific community reads it. 281 00:22:16,480 --> 00:22:21,400 Then the scientific community tries to test, can they repeat this experiment? 282 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:27,240 And then after that kind of scrutiny, it goes out into the public domain. 283 00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:31,120 Researchers in the field are eager to reproduce the work of Ponds and Fleischman. 284 00:22:31,120 --> 00:22:36,120 The public benefits of such a discovery would be economically and environmentally revolutionary. 285 00:22:36,120 --> 00:22:43,520 Well, a cold fusion is a perfect example of how science works and judges its own kind. 286 00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:49,520 Numerous attempts to duplicate the alleged results by several independent laboratories 287 00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:51,120 failed miserably. 288 00:22:51,120 --> 00:22:56,600 There weren't any marginal results that could even give hope to any cold fusion that worked. 289 00:22:56,600 --> 00:23:02,080 In the way that Ponds and Fleischman claim, as a result, cold fusion was denounced 290 00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:05,440 and all funding for cold fusion was cut off. 291 00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:10,960 In conclusion, we have no evidence in our laboratory with any of our samples for fusion. 292 00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:16,120 I'm very sorry that Professor Lewis has no information on the teritium levels. 293 00:23:16,120 --> 00:23:22,600 That is available and is available in the correction list to the paper. 294 00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:23,600 We know the foreground. 295 00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:24,600 We don't know the background. 296 00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:29,600 I beg your pardon, the background is available in the corrections to the paper. 297 00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:30,600 That might be. 298 00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:32,600 I would like to specifically hear what an atelium... 299 00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:33,600 Could we go on? 300 00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:37,680 Could we go on to the question, please? 301 00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:41,080 This was the official story surrounding the cold fusion debacle. 302 00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:45,800 However, in subsequent years, independent scientists working to duplicate the work of 303 00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:50,600 Ponds and Fleischman were indeed able to produce similar results. 304 00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:55,920 But I do know that a great discovery has been made and I do know that it's completely 305 00:23:55,920 --> 00:24:00,600 true and I do know that nuclear reactions can take place in the cold. 306 00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:16,600 And I think that's one of the greater things to be discovered in this century. 307 00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:21,280 And once Ponds and Fleischman made the choice to take their claim public prior to publication 308 00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:26,480 in an accepted scientific journal, they were sitting ducks for the scientific establishment 309 00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:30,360 and the guardians of the peer review system. 310 00:24:30,360 --> 00:24:31,600 It was just a very unfortunate... 311 00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:39,160 Apparently it was a very unfortunate time to make such an announcement for various political 312 00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:40,660 reasons really. 313 00:24:40,660 --> 00:24:46,880 The situation in the United States, the situation with regard to the program in cold fusion, 314 00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:48,940 that was against it. 315 00:24:48,940 --> 00:24:55,260 But also of course was the fact that we were not ready to make such an announcement. 316 00:24:55,260 --> 00:25:00,220 Journal publication is considered a necessary first step in establishing scientific merit 317 00:25:00,220 --> 00:25:02,740 and legitimacy. 318 00:25:02,740 --> 00:25:09,220 Data should be published in the most reputable of scientific journals. 319 00:25:09,220 --> 00:25:14,540 It should not be published first in the newspapers or other media. 320 00:25:14,540 --> 00:25:22,240 It should not be quite frankly disseminated through the popular media until in fact the 321 00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:24,460 information can be replicated. 322 00:25:24,460 --> 00:25:33,780 Science moves forward by having people research certain claims on one side or the other and 323 00:25:33,780 --> 00:25:40,060 that in fact they are able to resolve it by doing more experimentation or more tests 324 00:25:40,060 --> 00:25:46,340 so that they can figure out what it is that is actually going on. 325 00:25:46,340 --> 00:25:50,540 The cold fusion experiments of Ponds and Fleischman have been widely replicated over 326 00:25:50,540 --> 00:25:52,860 the past ten years. 327 00:25:52,860 --> 00:26:00,100 It was absolutely clear in 1991 that there was a staggering excess heat source in water 328 00:26:00,100 --> 00:26:06,860 that would lead to ultimately technologies that would change the world forever. 329 00:26:06,860 --> 00:26:11,660 Today, we can no longer say that the evidence is overwhelmingly compelling. 330 00:26:11,660 --> 00:26:15,820 It is now 100 percent certain. 331 00:26:15,820 --> 00:26:20,140 The scientific establishment in continuing to uphold the claim that the two respected 332 00:26:20,140 --> 00:26:25,620 chemists handed the world a gold brick has now itself come under scrutiny. 333 00:26:25,620 --> 00:26:29,980 Believed by many to be conspiring to suppress the confirmed results of the monumental break 334 00:26:30,020 --> 00:26:33,020 through that is cold fusion. 335 00:26:33,020 --> 00:26:38,580 If this is so, then the scientific establishment is perpetrating a fraud of its own. 336 00:26:38,580 --> 00:26:40,060 But why? 337 00:26:40,060 --> 00:26:47,540 Why relegate a discovery that could result in pollution-free unlimited energy to oblivion? 338 00:26:47,540 --> 00:26:53,020 The work of both Ponds and Fleischman were considered bogus and thus no further funding 339 00:26:53,020 --> 00:26:55,020 and their careers destroyed. 340 00:26:55,020 --> 00:27:00,340 They left their respective universities and shamed by the scientific community. 341 00:27:00,340 --> 00:27:05,820 With Ponds and Fleischman and cold fusion rubbed out, hot fusion or nuclear energy research 342 00:27:05,820 --> 00:27:10,460 could continue as the grant funding conduit of choice. 343 00:27:10,460 --> 00:27:15,580 With money as the primary motivating factor, it is clear that the knife of science fraud 344 00:27:15,580 --> 00:27:19,140 can and does cut both ways. 345 00:27:19,140 --> 00:27:25,460 The rigidity of the peer review, or as some would call it, the sneer review system, boldly 346 00:27:25,460 --> 00:27:30,900 dismissed the work of two highly respected and accomplished professionals, doing so despite 347 00:27:30,900 --> 00:27:35,260 mounting favorable data supporting their claims. 348 00:27:35,260 --> 00:27:43,820 When the Wright brothers first flew in 1903, no papers covered as tall because everybody 349 00:27:43,820 --> 00:27:48,740 was convinced, certainly the American press, that heavy-than-air flight was totally impossible. 350 00:27:48,740 --> 00:27:51,060 All the top scientists said this is nonsense. 351 00:27:51,060 --> 00:27:57,980 It wasn't for about five years that eventually they realized, my goodness, this is real. 352 00:27:57,980 --> 00:27:59,740 Heavy-than-air flight is possible. 353 00:27:59,740 --> 00:28:05,900 And I think a similar thing is going to happen with so-called cold fusion, although it's 354 00:28:05,900 --> 00:28:09,900 seldom cold and often isn't fusion at all. 355 00:28:09,900 --> 00:28:15,060 The rush to announce results, to publish work and establish ownership comes as a result 356 00:28:15,060 --> 00:28:17,540 of massive competition. 357 00:28:17,540 --> 00:28:23,100 In the case of cold fusion, the fraud perpetrated against ponds and Fleischmann by the scientific 358 00:28:23,100 --> 00:28:28,980 community has cost the people of the world fifteen years in the development of a technology 359 00:28:28,980 --> 00:28:38,340 that would mean a virtually unlimited source of clean, free energy. 360 00:28:38,340 --> 00:28:41,380 Without grants, scientists can't research. 361 00:28:41,380 --> 00:28:44,100 Without research, scientists can't publish papers. 362 00:28:44,100 --> 00:28:46,980 Without papers, they can't achieve recognition. 363 00:28:46,980 --> 00:28:50,740 They can't bring future dollars to their institutions or secure their position on the 364 00:28:50,740 --> 00:28:52,340 faculty. 365 00:28:52,340 --> 00:28:56,260 In our research, we met with some of the most important representatives from each of several 366 00:28:56,260 --> 00:28:58,140 scientific fields. 367 00:28:58,140 --> 00:29:01,380 Fearing professional reprisal, they refused to appear on camera. 368 00:29:01,380 --> 00:29:05,500 However, each scientist made the same troubling allegation. 369 00:29:05,500 --> 00:29:12,220 The rush to publish, legitimately or otherwise, comes as a direct result of grant competition. 370 00:29:12,220 --> 00:29:16,140 It's commonly accepted that the more you publish, the greater your chances of success in the 371 00:29:16,140 --> 00:29:18,140 grant contest. 372 00:29:18,140 --> 00:29:21,740 The bottom line, publish or perish. 373 00:29:21,740 --> 00:29:26,540 Well, pretty soon we see the professor and then the dough is in the oven. 374 00:29:26,540 --> 00:29:28,820 Sure pretzel dough. 375 00:29:28,820 --> 00:29:33,420 The girls seem to learn quicker in the boys, but then the gals are always handy around 376 00:29:33,420 --> 00:29:34,420 the kitchen. 377 00:29:34,420 --> 00:29:37,860 Some are good and some are not. 378 00:29:37,860 --> 00:29:43,860 Modern science has unfortunately evolved into a huge feedback loop. 379 00:29:43,860 --> 00:29:47,540 Without grants, scientists can't conduct research. 380 00:29:47,540 --> 00:29:50,660 Without research, scientists can't publish papers. 381 00:29:50,660 --> 00:29:56,140 Without published papers, scientists can't achieve recognition or bring future dollars 382 00:29:56,140 --> 00:29:58,180 to secure their future. 383 00:29:58,180 --> 00:30:05,620 So the cliche, publish or perish, has a great deal of meaning both, literally and figuratively. 384 00:30:05,620 --> 00:30:09,540 Accomplishment is generally evaluated on multiple levels. 385 00:30:09,540 --> 00:30:18,100 One is the number of publications, but more importantly to that, the quality of publications. 386 00:30:18,100 --> 00:30:22,980 Publication is important for scientists and researchers for a number of reasons. 387 00:30:22,980 --> 00:30:29,300 One is because it does get the claims before their own community. 388 00:30:29,300 --> 00:30:32,860 It ensures review. 389 00:30:32,860 --> 00:30:40,980 It ensures that it has gone through some process within the community that assesses the credibility 390 00:30:40,980 --> 00:30:43,300 of what is being said. 391 00:30:43,300 --> 00:30:48,340 Some of the government agencies, for example, the National Institutes of Health, weigh their 392 00:30:48,340 --> 00:30:52,540 evaluation criteria very heavily on whether or not you've published and whether or not 393 00:30:52,540 --> 00:30:56,100 the journals that you've published in are peer-reviewed journals. 394 00:30:56,100 --> 00:31:03,780 One goes from assistant professorship to associate professorship and depending the rate of that 395 00:31:03,780 --> 00:31:08,980 promotion is generally dependent on the person's rate of accomplishments. 396 00:31:08,980 --> 00:31:14,300 So the more you accomplish, the more grants you generate, the more articles you publish, 397 00:31:14,300 --> 00:31:17,340 the faster your rate of ascent. 398 00:31:17,340 --> 00:31:22,060 While almost every university administrator would say on camera that there is no publisher 399 00:31:22,060 --> 00:31:27,100 parish quota system and in effect to judge the status of a given professor, there would 400 00:31:27,100 --> 00:31:32,420 all be at a complete loss to give the name of any high-ranking professor who did not 401 00:31:32,420 --> 00:31:35,700 publish at least three or four papers a year. 402 00:31:35,700 --> 00:31:42,780 This apparent life or death need to publish is especially significant for university professors. 403 00:31:42,780 --> 00:31:47,540 On top of their constant struggle to procure grant money, publishing is requisite to their 404 00:31:47,540 --> 00:31:51,260 attaining that elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 405 00:31:51,260 --> 00:31:56,620 That ultimate ride on the university gravy train, the guarantee of lifetime employment 406 00:31:56,620 --> 00:31:59,020 known as tenure. 407 00:31:59,020 --> 00:32:04,740 The philosophical reason for tenure is that it gives people freedom of speech. 408 00:32:04,740 --> 00:32:10,140 So that you can say something that someone else doesn't like, a different, not personal, 409 00:32:10,140 --> 00:32:12,980 but a different theory, and you're protected. 410 00:32:12,980 --> 00:32:16,740 And you need that in an academic environment otherwise there's no controversy. 411 00:32:16,740 --> 00:32:21,300 You're free to speak out because you're going to be fired, then people would not have the 412 00:32:21,300 --> 00:32:22,980 same freedom of thought. 413 00:32:22,980 --> 00:32:31,580 As it has evolved in the latter part of the 20th century, it is a reward system for truly 414 00:32:31,580 --> 00:32:40,220 outstanding accomplishment in science and depending on the university, also interwoven 415 00:32:40,220 --> 00:32:44,900 with accomplishments as a teacher and as a clinician. 416 00:32:44,900 --> 00:32:56,260 And it is, again, depending on the university, given to no more than 10% to 25% of individuals 417 00:32:56,260 --> 00:32:58,180 on a faculty. 418 00:32:58,180 --> 00:33:02,460 If scientists fail to maintain the highest levels of publishing, they risk both their 419 00:33:02,460 --> 00:33:05,740 funding and their status at the university. 420 00:33:05,740 --> 00:33:10,700 Loss of grant money directly threatens earnings since more and more often professors receive 421 00:33:10,700 --> 00:33:14,300 the bulk of their salary from research grants. 422 00:33:14,300 --> 00:33:19,220 What most people don't understand is that only a very small fraction of the researchers 423 00:33:19,220 --> 00:33:24,940 and professors at a given research university are funded by the university directly. 424 00:33:24,940 --> 00:33:27,220 That's called hard money. 425 00:33:27,220 --> 00:33:32,180 In a vast majority of other cases, the university would set the salary range but not pay the 426 00:33:32,180 --> 00:33:34,140 salary. 427 00:33:34,140 --> 00:33:38,860 The researcher would be responsible for getting a source like the National Science Foundation 428 00:33:39,180 --> 00:33:44,180 or the National Institutes of Health or a company to pay the university that then pays 429 00:33:44,180 --> 00:33:45,940 the researcher. 430 00:33:45,940 --> 00:33:51,500 That is what's called soft money and in these situations, scientists must perform the unenviable 431 00:33:51,500 --> 00:33:54,780 dual role of marketer and researcher. 432 00:33:54,780 --> 00:33:57,660 Are reports of science fraud overstated? 433 00:33:57,660 --> 00:34:01,820 Are the men and women we depend on to provide the medical products for ourselves and our 434 00:34:01,820 --> 00:34:05,420 children operating solely out of greed? 435 00:34:05,500 --> 00:34:09,940 Or are these just the self-indulgent allegations of an overzealous media? 436 00:34:09,940 --> 00:34:13,140 It's kind of like your income tax. 437 00:34:13,140 --> 00:34:17,540 There's probably about 5% of people that are crooks that don't even file their income 438 00:34:17,540 --> 00:34:18,900 tax. 439 00:34:18,900 --> 00:34:21,420 And then there's the rest of us, 90% of people. 440 00:34:21,420 --> 00:34:26,220 We do a good job because we know, you know, you do an honest job because you know that 441 00:34:26,220 --> 00:34:32,820 the possibility is that you could be audited and that there are people are watching you. 442 00:34:32,820 --> 00:34:37,260 People pick on that 5% because they like to read about it. 443 00:34:37,260 --> 00:34:38,460 Who is the press going to write about it? 444 00:34:38,460 --> 00:34:39,460 Mr. Jones? 445 00:34:39,460 --> 00:34:43,460 Oh, we interviewed Mr. Jones today and he had a perfect tax report. 446 00:34:43,460 --> 00:34:44,460 How nice. 447 00:34:44,460 --> 00:34:49,620 Or the guy, this bum hasn't filed in five years and we have bad schools because he's 448 00:34:49,620 --> 00:34:50,820 not paying his taxes. 449 00:34:50,820 --> 00:34:52,620 I mean, it's the same thing. 450 00:34:52,620 --> 00:34:57,100 Of course, I like bad news myself to read about it. 451 00:34:57,100 --> 00:35:01,060 Is this type of sensational reporting eroding public support? 452 00:35:01,060 --> 00:35:06,300 If so, how does the negative publicity and allegations of misconduct impact the practice 453 00:35:06,300 --> 00:35:08,100 of science? 454 00:35:08,100 --> 00:35:14,500 The example of discovering the problems that emerge with fen fen. 455 00:35:14,500 --> 00:35:28,620 A typical of what happens once it goes into a broader population. 456 00:35:28,620 --> 00:35:38,620 Public confidence is eroded by these odd cases. 457 00:35:38,620 --> 00:35:43,140 But on the other hand, what happens the next day when someone comes out with an antibody 458 00:35:43,140 --> 00:35:45,060 that attacks breast cancer? 459 00:35:45,060 --> 00:35:46,060 We do experiments. 460 00:35:46,060 --> 00:35:47,980 We think we understand what's going on. 461 00:35:47,980 --> 00:35:48,980 We publish it. 462 00:35:48,980 --> 00:35:51,700 We think we know one answer at least. 463 00:35:51,700 --> 00:35:56,180 And three years, four years down the road, the methods change, the technology has advanced 464 00:35:56,180 --> 00:35:59,260 and the results don't change. 465 00:35:59,260 --> 00:36:05,140 But how we interpret them may change as time progresses. 466 00:36:05,140 --> 00:36:11,620 So a product comes to the market generally after being tested in anywhere from several 467 00:36:11,620 --> 00:36:16,300 thousand to perhaps ten thousand individuals. 468 00:36:16,300 --> 00:36:23,220 When the product comes on the market, be it fen fen or any other pharmaceutical, we then 469 00:36:23,340 --> 00:36:30,100 have a population base of a hundred thousand or five hundred thousand or millions of people. 470 00:36:30,100 --> 00:36:35,460 Then one begins to see side effects that one did not anticipate. 471 00:36:35,460 --> 00:36:40,300 Or the drug may even behave better than one anticipated. 472 00:36:40,300 --> 00:36:44,660 The vagra I think would be a good example of where originally the project wasn't aimed 473 00:36:44,660 --> 00:36:47,140 at the treatment for erectile dysfunction. 474 00:36:47,140 --> 00:36:49,060 It was aimed at some other kind of treatment. 475 00:36:49,060 --> 00:36:52,780 And as we went through the discovery and the development process, we discovered that that 476 00:36:52,820 --> 00:36:54,740 was not going to be an avenue that made sense. 477 00:36:54,740 --> 00:36:58,340 There might have been four or five applications considered, but in the end, the one that looked 478 00:36:58,340 --> 00:37:03,420 like the most viable from a scientific, probably from a financial side, from an acceptance 479 00:37:03,420 --> 00:37:07,700 by society would have been to aim the treatments toward erectile dysfunction. 480 00:37:07,700 --> 00:37:12,300 They're not safe and they can't be made safe. 481 00:37:12,300 --> 00:37:13,300 Use a rubber. 482 00:37:13,300 --> 00:37:16,500 Well, I think the American public is pretty intelligent. 483 00:37:16,540 --> 00:37:25,540 I think they recognize that wide use of medications frequently is associated with unexpected complications. 484 00:37:25,540 --> 00:37:34,900 I think that consciously or subconsciously, when they hear about drugs that cause certain 485 00:37:34,900 --> 00:37:42,660 side effects and certain medical problems, they recognize that something unfortunate 486 00:37:42,660 --> 00:37:45,820 has occurred and they're concerned about it. 487 00:37:45,820 --> 00:37:51,940 But at the same time, I think they recognize that the system is working for the betterment 488 00:37:51,940 --> 00:37:57,700 of themselves and that the primary goal of our system is to do no harm. 489 00:38:03,940 --> 00:38:08,460 With multi-billion-dollar interests hanging in the balance, the rush to get profitable 490 00:38:08,460 --> 00:38:13,860 products to market is the single most motivating force on the corporate agenda. 491 00:38:13,860 --> 00:38:18,060 Even the smallest amount of data fudging or most insignificant leap of faith can lead 492 00:38:18,060 --> 00:38:20,700 tragically to consumer deaths. 493 00:38:20,700 --> 00:38:25,620 However, in our attempts to look deeper into the media hype surrounding science fraud, 494 00:38:25,620 --> 00:38:27,980 we've found few smoking guns. 495 00:38:27,980 --> 00:38:32,900 Unlike other aspects of our society, the scientific community has developed effective checks and 496 00:38:32,900 --> 00:38:38,860 balances that have helped preserve the integrity of the scientific method. 497 00:38:38,860 --> 00:38:43,940 Most concerned about fast-track practices foretell dangers wherein even the tiniest 498 00:38:43,940 --> 00:38:47,180 fudge can result in human tragedy. 499 00:38:47,180 --> 00:38:51,620 Spokesmen for the scientific establishment would uphold that safeguards are continually 500 00:38:51,620 --> 00:38:58,460 renewed through the effective checks and balances that make up the very conservative peer review system. 501 00:38:58,460 --> 00:39:04,140 The larger question may be, is the peer review system so overbearing that it is obstructing 502 00:39:04,140 --> 00:39:06,780 the very pathway to discovery? 503 00:39:06,780 --> 00:39:11,220 No one is making that much of an advance. 504 00:39:11,220 --> 00:39:17,260 So the advances are small and most of them are not terribly detrimental. 505 00:39:17,260 --> 00:39:18,780 They're helpful to society. 506 00:39:18,780 --> 00:39:22,340 Nobody is working on making Frankenstein. 507 00:39:22,340 --> 00:39:30,780 Nobody is Dr. Frankenstein working on making a monster. 508 00:39:30,780 --> 00:39:39,100 There are occasional bad apples, but virtually all the scientists are really trying their 509 00:39:39,100 --> 00:39:46,220 best, are honest, and are pursuing what they believe are exciting venues of research. 510 00:39:46,220 --> 00:39:50,460 There's pressure on them, but I think the most of them realize that fudging data is 511 00:39:50,460 --> 00:39:52,100 not the way to do it. 512 00:39:52,100 --> 00:39:58,140 And even if they do it, those that do it do it in such a small way as to be insignificant 513 00:39:58,140 --> 00:40:00,060 for society in general. 514 00:40:00,060 --> 00:40:03,860 But there is that fear, in fact, that probably might even be a little bit exaggerated, that 515 00:40:03,860 --> 00:40:04,860 fear. 516 00:40:04,860 --> 00:40:09,220 If you go and publish a paper and you do it for a company, in that paper it has to say 517 00:40:09,220 --> 00:40:14,060 that this research was funded by that company. 518 00:40:14,060 --> 00:40:18,060 If you give a talk about something, you have to say that some of the facts that I'm going 519 00:40:18,060 --> 00:40:24,300 to present here were part of a study that was supported by X company. 520 00:40:24,300 --> 00:40:28,180 So there is that area of conflict of interest. 521 00:40:28,180 --> 00:40:35,300 The major interaction between the pharmaceutical industry and academia is through various clinical 522 00:40:35,300 --> 00:40:37,060 trials. 523 00:40:37,060 --> 00:40:42,900 That is where the pharmaceutical firms finally recognize whether they have a good product 524 00:40:42,900 --> 00:40:43,900 or not. 525 00:40:43,900 --> 00:40:48,740 They have enough preliminary data, but they need to have it corroborated in a clinical 526 00:40:48,740 --> 00:40:50,260 setting. 527 00:40:50,260 --> 00:40:52,660 And quite frankly, it's not biased. 528 00:40:52,660 --> 00:40:53,660 It's not a good idea to have it. 529 00:40:53,660 --> 00:40:59,660 And drugs will either then drop out of the clinical marketplace or if they're good drugs, 530 00:40:59,660 --> 00:41:02,940 their development will then go on to the FDA. 531 00:41:02,940 --> 00:41:08,820 But at every step of the way, the product is evaluated. 532 00:41:08,820 --> 00:41:10,500 Actually the commercial community is interested. 533 00:41:10,500 --> 00:41:14,940 They're not interested in having somebody be corrupt and ruin the name of their product 534 00:41:14,940 --> 00:41:20,780 because they tried to please them and did something that was out of the ordinary. 535 00:41:20,780 --> 00:41:24,500 So this science undergoes more scrutiny than anything else. 536 00:41:24,500 --> 00:41:29,620 There are all these steps that ensure that the products that come to market should be 537 00:41:29,620 --> 00:41:32,020 safe and helpful. 538 00:41:32,020 --> 00:41:38,460 And I think it's up to each scientist that they maintain integrity, that they do the 539 00:41:38,460 --> 00:41:44,020 best science they can, and that they present the results as what they actually are. 540 00:41:44,020 --> 00:41:53,700 And the FDA is not known as being an easy mark for the pharmaceutical industry. 541 00:41:53,700 --> 00:42:01,260 They want hard data and they analyze that data with consultants and they will not approve 542 00:42:01,260 --> 00:42:06,140 a product unless they are certain of its efficacy and of its safety. 543 00:42:06,140 --> 00:42:12,540 Science progresses with sound, reliable results, only to the degree that scientists are honest. 544 00:42:12,540 --> 00:42:17,180 The existing system of checks and balances works to protect us from the few who do decide 545 00:42:17,180 --> 00:42:19,260 to defy the system. 546 00:42:19,260 --> 00:42:25,620 But when a system becomes too rigid, money-motivated and political, there is another danger. 547 00:42:25,620 --> 00:42:29,980 That the truly important scientific work, like the work being done today in the area 548 00:42:29,980 --> 00:42:36,380 of cold fusion, either never gets recognized or is intentionally discarded by a system 549 00:42:36,380 --> 00:42:38,580 resistant to change. 550 00:42:38,580 --> 00:42:46,940 The peer-reviewed system in this country, both for the funding of grants and for the 551 00:42:46,940 --> 00:42:56,620 publication of manuscripts, is so rigorous and conducted at such a high level, meaning 552 00:42:56,620 --> 00:43:01,940 referees who review the articles, editorial review of the journals. 553 00:43:01,940 --> 00:43:06,740 These are people that are highly educated, highly intelligent, have a great spirit and 554 00:43:06,740 --> 00:43:10,060 love for life for their own and for other people. 555 00:43:10,060 --> 00:43:16,020 And even though we are doing experimentation, there are tremendous safeguards built in, again, 556 00:43:16,020 --> 00:43:20,460 both internally and externally, to obviate the chance of there being problems. 557 00:44:06,740 --> 00:44:18,100 In a world where corruption, greed and political maneuvering often win out over the virtues 558 00:44:18,100 --> 00:44:22,500 of the human spirit, it's comforting to find a pursuit which is constructed a way to keep 559 00:44:22,500 --> 00:44:24,740 its own health in order. 560 00:44:24,740 --> 00:44:30,100 While the history of science is littered with incidents of fraud and flagrant misrepresentation, 561 00:44:30,100 --> 00:44:35,580 we have found little to support a contemporary conspiratorial plot in the phenomenon archives. 562 00:44:35,580 --> 00:44:38,620 I'm Dean Stockwell for Phenomenon. 563 00:45:05,580 --> 00:45:09,620 Even in science, there's lies.