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A Brief Respite First Another Report Proper Priorities

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A Brief Respite First Another Report Proper Priorities Nature Vol. 292 30 July 1981 399 House would lie between this and $35 EEC hormone legislation Community will still have to decide million. between a policy which favours the In his letter to Mr Fuqua, Dr Press points consumer approach of banning unless out that a study carried out last year for Mr First another report proved safe and one favouring the Carter by NSF and the Department of Brussels industry's attitude of carrying on until a Education demonstrated problems caused Progress of a sort was achieved by the substance is known to be dangerous to by the deterioration of science and European Community's agricultural human health - which is the choice of the engineering education that "are pervasive ministers in Brussels last week when they United States. Jasper Becker and complex and will require determined discussed the problem of a total ban on and concerted effort by all sectors of hormone use in livestock breeding. They Third World development society for their solution''. David Dickson decided that Community law should ban stilbenes and thyrostatics as growth pro­ moters in livestock breeding even though Proper priorities A brief respite these hormones are already outlawed in all Washington The Glomar Challenger, the work­ the member states. The US Agency for International horse of the Deep Sea Drilling Project, And to serve as a figleaf for the lack of Development (AID) is continuing to pick docked last week at Southampton in agreement on other growth promoters, it up the pieces following the failure of the preparation for the next stage (Leg 81) of was decided to wait for a scientific report Carter Administration to convince Con­ the project. The previous leg was spent in before dealing with the natural hormones gress of the need for a new Institute for the Bay of Biscay, to determine the rifting oestradiol, progesterone, testosterone and Scientific and Technological Cooperation and subsidence history of the continental the synthetic hormones trembolone and to act as a focus for research on the needs of margin. Leg 81 will be spent near Rockall, zeranol. A deadline of nine months has Third World countries. a few hundred miles to the west of been set for this report but quite how it will Earlier this month the agency announced Scotland, studying the variations of help to solve what is essentially a political that as part of a general reorganization, a subsidence across the ocean-continent problem nobody is quite sure. new Bureau of Science and Technology boundary. Details of how this scientific report will was to be established. Furthermore the title be compiled are also still hazy. Pre­ of "assistant administrator for develop­ sumably, the same national experts who ment support" will be changed to "senior form the various scientific committees assistant administrator for science and advising the European Commission on vet­ technology'', a position that will have erinary or nutritional matters will assess the responsibility for the bureau. present state of knowledge. One of the aims of this reorganization, European consumer groups are planning according to agency officials, is to to write to their ministers to demand that strengthen the research activities of AID these experts are chosen for their impar­ which have in the past been of lower tiality. In fact, anyone nominated by a priority than more conventional technical national government will have already con­ aid programmes. This was one of the tributed towards that government's reasons quoted for establishing the position on hormones. The scientific Institute for Scientific and Technological report may therefore end up reflecting only Cooperation, a body which would remain the existing divisions of opinion. under the same umbrella as AID, but The United Kingdom and Ireland are the operate independently with its own board strongest opponents of a blanket ban, but of advisers. Challenger on the crest of a wave producers in other member states are The parallel between the goals of the ill­ The Deep Sea Drilling Project is at lobbying effectively in the other direction. fated institute and the newly proposed present riding on a wave of enthusiasm France, Denmark and Italy want bureau is strengthened by the fact that Mr for its scientific record, and has so far legislation to be as severe as possible - and Reagan's appointee to head the bureau, Dr done well in President Reagan's financial it was the ruling of an Italian court to ban Nyle Brady, had previously been obstacle race. Glomar Challenger's veal sales which started the whole affair. successfully wooed by the Carter Adminis­ drilling operations are funded for at least The new French agriculture minister, Edith tration as its proposed director for the another two years, with a 1982 budget of Cresson, stressed at the Council that institute. Dr Brady will have responsibility $26 million. Of this, $12 million will come France would not be bound by the for the administration of a wide range of from Britain, Germany, France, the conclusions of the scientific report. centrally-funded research and develop­ Soviet Union and Japan, while the bulk Belgium and Germany in theory already ment programmes, some of which were to of the United States contribution will be ban the use of all hormones. have been shifted from AID to the new provided by the National Science Consumer groups are also incensed by institute. Foundation. the ministers' reluctance to thrash out the The Carter Administration had origin­ Future plans are, however, less certain ways and means to enforce a ban of any ally proposed significant increases in because of the debate within the foun­ kind. Natural hormones are notoriously research support for these areas which dation over the competing merits of difficult to detect and the various member would have virtually doubled the AID Glomar Explorer - the converted ex­ states do not all have the same reputation budget for research and development to CIA submarine-dredger. Although vastly for the effective policing of detectable $229.8 million in the fiscal year 1982. The more expensive (its expected cost lies substances. Reagan Administration has reduced this between $500 million and $1,000 million What has been achieved is the right for dramatically to a request for $134.5 over ten years), the Explorer programme any member country to prevent the entry million, with large cuts, for example, in would be half financed by the oil industry from another EEC country of meat which support for agricultural research on food on the strength of its considerable oil­ contains hormones such as stilboestrol, production in Africa. hunting potential. The scientific issues diethylstilboestrol, dienoestrol and Even with these cuts, however, AID are complex, however; and a decision hexoestrol. And those member states with officials point out that the from Congress on whether or not to fund legislation which bans other hormones can Administration's request for science and initial Explorer development is expected carry on as before. technology programmes for 1982 is 40 per in October. Philip Campbell In nine months' time, the European cent higher than the amount spent on e1981 MacmillanJ·Jurnals Ltd 0028-083618 I /3 I 0399-02SOI .00 400 Nature Vol. 292 30 July 1981 research by AID in 1980. A particularly sig­ with the rise of the independent trade union zation, one change is certain - a revision nificant increase is in energy research, movement last August. of the present practice of financing science scheduled to grow from $3.4 million in The new system, which is to be intro­ by "problems" ostensibly related to 1980 to $16.3 million in 1982. duced in four phases over the next 18 economic needs and organized into a The impact the increase in funds and the months, will allow for more public and cumbersome hierarchy of priorities. internal reorganization will have remains expert discussion in advance of overall Among likely innovations are direct controversial. Those in Congress who production plans and delegate to factories research contracts between industry and argued most strongly for the institute are initiative for deciding how they fit in with the universities or academy institutes and somewhat sceptical. the overall targets. the allocation of funds for basic research This scepticism is reflected in a report As in Hungary, the authorities will steer directly to the institutions concerned. from the House Foreign Affairs Com­ production by a system of financial For the moment, however, virtually all mittee on the AID budget request, which incentives, but factory managements will such funding will come in non-convertible has included as a separate item a proposed have considerable responsibility for zloty. Hard currency for the purchase of $10 million (reduced from President decision-making on modernization and equipment, reagents or journals from the Carter's requested $18 million) for the technological innovation. One of the West is simply not to be had; according to support of scientific and technological major charges laid against the previous one leading physicist, only two sub­ cooperation with developing countries. Gierek government in the preamble to the scriptions to Nature are now authorized for The committee has reinserted this money new plan is that autocratic planning thewholeofWarsaw. Vera Rich into the broader category of "selected blocked technical innovation. At the same development activities''. time, many of Mr Gierek's prestigious British Technology Group In fact, much of this money will be spent schemes are being dropped. The in a way comparable to what the institute "Program-Wisla", for example, which would have done, but through a different was totally to remodel Poland's major Mixed marriage agency, the National Academy of Sciences. waterway by the end of the century, has Last week, Britain's National Enterprise AID has agreed to provide $35 million of its been cut back to its environmental and Board and the National Research Develop­ science and technology funds over the next agricultural components.
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