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Indecent exposure

29 June 2009

I never know what to make of articles that appear in The West Virginia Record, the state’s only real legal rag (they prefer the term “journal”).

This week’s edition contains an interesting article about some federally-funded research conducted by WVU health sciences faculty who also moonlight as expert witnesses in railroad workers’ solvents exposure cases.

Several points worth making:

For those of you who think lawyers are whores, you haven’t met a real whore until you’ve met some of the “expert” witnesses that are paraded regularly through our courtroom doors. Indeed in all my years associated with the legal system, I can think of only a handful of times when an expert produced an opinion that was inconsistent with what the person paying his or her bill wanted him or her to find.
The work of James Turner and others in exposing the WVU researchers’ questionable work is an example of fine lawyering. Lawyers have to become experts themselves to challenge expert witnesses effectively. Mr. Turner appears to have left no stone unturned in getting to the bottom of this matter.
If the allegations are true, several remedies are available to address it. There are federal criminal and civil penalties for research fraud and/or misuse of federal funds, as well as penalties for perjury. Furthermore, WVU has a system whereby tenured faculty can be stripped of both tenure and their jobs if allegations like these turn out to be true. Finally, courts can sanction lawyers and others who knowingly perpetrate frauds like this on the court.
I note that Mr. Turner hired as his expert a University of Michigan neurology professor. The University of Michigan is one of the nation’s premier research universities and member of the Association of American Universities. See “To Research or Not to Research? That Is the Question.”

The cure for cancer

28 June 2009

On the other side of the research house is the federal grant-making process for research. Today the New York Times runs a critique of the National Cancer Institute’s grant-making process. (NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health, which received significant new funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.)

The gravamen of the story is that NCI is funding research that is”safe” and unlikely to provide much in the way of advances for cancer prevention or cures. ”It has become a sort of jobs program, a way to keep research laboratories going year after year with the understanding that the focus will be on small projects unlikely to make significant steps toward curing cancer,” says the New York Times.

My favorite research topic on NCI’s website: “Arctic.” Some studies you might not want to look at if you’re hoping to find a cure for cancer: “Management of Insomnia in Cancer Patients” and “Spousal Support, Emotional Disclosure, and Adjustment to Head and Neck Cancer,” I, of course, am cherry picking, but even a cursory review of funded projects suggests that NCI is not funding much high risk/high reward research.

It is very important that NCI spend its money wisely because it provides far more money than any other organization for cancer research. By comparison to NCI’s $105 billion since 1971, the American Cancer Society has spent $3.4 billion since 1946, according to the New York Times.

Meanwhile … people are dying.

28 June 2009. Further reading from the same edition of the New York Times: “New Treatment for Cancer Shows Promise in Testing.” From where are the lead researchers? Australia.

To research or not to research? That Is the question

26 June 2009

Dr. Robert M Berdahl, president of the Association of American Universities, suggested yesterday that the United States needs to prune its number of research universities in light of tighter budgets and stronger international competition. If this were to be done, it is beyond doubt that Marshall University and all but certain that West Virginia University* would not make the cut.

I have mixed feelings about Dr. Berdahl’s proposal. On the one hand, I think every higher education institution should be free to compete for scarce research grant dollars from NSF, NIH and other organizations. If there is any arena in which free market and merit principles should operate, it is in the fields of education and research. On the other hand, I know that Congress has provided more and more institutions with earmarks for research without regard to merit and that West Virginia University and Marshall University both have struggled to come up with the modest amounts of matching funds required by West Virginia’s own Research Trust Fund program, which suggests that neither institution is ready to move into the upper echelons of American research universities any time soon.

*West Virginia University is listed in the Carnegie classification system as having “high,” rather than “very high,” research activity, which places it behind at least 96 other higher education institutions in terms of research activity. Additionally, West Virginia University will not appear anywhere on the soon-to-be-released and very prestigious National Research Council rankings of graduate programs at over 222 higher education institutions because it didn’t even participate! I challenge someone to review the list and attempt to identify ONE other state without a participating institution (HINT: There is one other state.) or ONE of West Virginia University’s peer institutions that did not participate. More on this subject when the rankings are released.

A certain age

25 June 2009

For those of us of a certain age, the almost simultaneous deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson remind us of our childhoods and our own mortality.

What young boy did not have or want to have that sexy poster of Farrah Fawcett on his wall? What person my age doesn’t remember Thriller! or know how to do the moonwalk (not well in most cases)?

These two individuals aged very differently. Farrah Fawcett, the ultimate sex symbol, went from “Charlie’s Angels” sexpot to “Extremities” victim-turned-victor to drugged-out David Letterman guest before ultimately becoming the very vulnerable face of anal cancer. Michael Jackson, on the other hand, went from being the ultimate pop icon to a very creepy, almost-white pedophile.

Of the two, Michael Jackson certainly was the most gifted. But Farrah, for all her flaws, acquired in our consciousnesses an all-too-human face as she approached death, while Michael did not.

West Virginia State Museum

23 June 2009

As a former Golden Horseshoe winner, I had an opportunity to tour the newly-renovated West Virginia State Museum last Friday. I stayed almost two hours and could have stayed quite a bit longer. Random thoughts from that visit:

It was really nice to see Golden Horseshoe winners my mother’s age who received the award during World War II when no ceremony was held in Charleston finally dubbed as knights.
Kay Goodwin was right. The original design work needed to be redone. The design of Matthew Martin Design Works is light years better than the original design.
I am sure the West Virginia State Museum compares favorably with other state museums across the country. In hindsight, I am glad the State of West Virginia spent so much money on this project. Every state needs a showplace.
I am happy the designers gave short shrift to West Virginia’s rocks. I’m sure rocks are exciting to some people, but not to me. At the same time, I would have liked to have seen more about West Virginia’s first non-European or European settlers.
I liked the museum’s effort to clarify where the history we learned in school might not have been as accurate as we were taught. Morgan Morgan might not have been West Virginia’s first European settler! Who knew?
After seeing the displays on Monongah and the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel, I appreciate even more the importance West Virginia and America place on worker health and safety today.
I have never understood the connection drawn between the U.S.S. West Virginia, which the Japanese sank at Pearl Harbor and the U.S. later raised, to West Virginia history. I’m pretty sure it never sailed up the Ohio, Kanawha or Potomac Rivers even once.
I liked what Senator Byrd had to say about being a West Virginian (never mind that he’s hasn’t lived here for decades), but it would have been nice to have heard more from common folks.
What’s with those fleas?

Indecent exposure

The cure for cancer

To research or not to research? That Is the question

A certain age

West Virginia State Museum

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