Fusion Chief Resigns Over Budget Cuts Nature L May, P.3)
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Nature Vol. 294 3 December 1981 391 Fusion chief resigns over budget cuts Nature l May, p.3). sufficient to maintain a cost-of-living Mirror devices Mirror research was given further increase for the current financial year. support by the successful development at As with other federal agencies, however, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory of it is the 1983 budget that is giving the tandem mirrors to plug the ends of a greatest cause for concern in Washington and tokamaks solenoid-containing plasma. As a result, it as the Administration seeks further was decided last year to expand the first substantial cuts in public spending to MFTF into a tandem mirror machine, reduce the federal deficit while increasing in conflict MFTF-B, scheduled for completion in the military budget. Washington about four years' time and to perform at OMB's decision to shift support from The head of fusion research programmes temperatures and confinement times the mirror programme to the TFTR "is a in the United States Department of Energy comparable to the performance of the precedent-setting decision taken without (DoE) has resigned in protest at the way in tokamak. an adequate hearing or technical which the Reagan Administration is This strategy is now coming apart under discussion", Dr Kintner said last week, proposing to allocate research funds the stringent budgetary pressures being adding that he had been unable to persuade between competing magnetic fusion applied by the Reagan Administration. DoE to appeal and that it was going "to projects. The first potential casualty is likely to be change the whole policy direction of His decision has apparently been the EBT "proof-of-principle" machine magnetic fusion research for the future". provoked by the decision of the Office of (EBT-P), proposed for construction by the "For the first time we had a policy which Management and Budget (OMB), in Carter Administration under contract with made sense for fusion. It did not argue that drawing up the recommendation that McDonnell Douglas, but cut from DoE's we should start competing with other President Reagan will present to Congress budget by Mr Reagan in March. Although forms of nuclear energy by a definite date, next January, to shift $25 million from Congress has reinstated the money in an but said we should first meet the short-term research into mirror devices being studied appropriations bill now sitting on the objective of knowing whether fusion is at the Lawrence Livermore National President's desk, which would provide $14 practical as an energy source. I worked for Laboratory in California to the Tokamak million for EBT-P in the current year, it five years to create cooperative Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) at the seems unlikely that he will sign it. relationships and research strategies which Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in Overall, the 1982 budget for magnetic made sense. That is all dead." New Jersey. fusion does not look too bad. Although While the strategy of diversified research The most immediate impact, according this was reduced in March from the $506 support has been pursued within DoE, to Dr Edwin Kintner, who has been head of million proposed by President Carter to however, it has come under some criticism DoE's research programme since 1977, and $456 million - partly by eliminating funds from the nuclear industry and its who last week submitted his resignation as for a centre for magnetic fusion congressional supporters who would like to associate director of the Office of Energy engineering which DoE had previously see work proceed on an experimental Research, will be to delay by about three agreed to build under congressional tokamak reactor as quickly as possible and years completion of the expanded Mirror pressure to move faster on magnetic fusion feel that the DoE strategy may have been Fusion Test Facility (known as MFTF-B) in general - the latter figure is still overly cautious. David Dickson which many consider to be the principal competitor to the tokamak. But the Administration's decision has Cline stripped of research grants broader implications, for it effectively Washington In the light of their conclusion that he undermines a strategy which has been In a move clearly intended to warn other had violated both federal regulations for developed by the department under Dr scientists not to ignore restrictions laid the protection of human subjects and NIH Kintner to diversify magnetic fusion down by the federal government, Dr guidelines for use of recombinant DNA research away from too great a dependence Martin Cline of the University of Cali technology, the members of the committee on the success of the Princeton work. fornia in Los Angeles (UCLA) has been recommended - and the NIH director Support for such diversification was first stripped of one of four research grants he (then Dr Donald Fredrickson) accepted - endorsed by the Administration after a receives from the National Institutes of that special prior approval be required for report prepared for DoE by an ad hoc Health (NIH) because he carried out un all future grant applications from him for committee under the chairmanship of Dr authorized experiments on human patients research with either human subjects or JohnS. Foster of TRW Inc. in 1978. This that involved the use of recombinant DNA recombinant DNA (Nature4 June, p.369). pointed out that although the Princeton techniques. It was left to the advisory councils of tokamak programme was achieving The incident first came to light last various NIH institutes funding his research impressive scientific results, many autumn, when it was revealed that, while to decide what to do about existing grants. engineering problems remained before a treating patients in Israel and Italy suf Two of them, the National Cancer Institute viable power reactor could be built. fering from {3-thalassaemia, Dr Cline used and the National Institute of Arthritis, Concentrating purely on the tokamak, it bone marrow cells whose genetic material Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney said, constituted an "unnecessarily high had been altered by recombinant DNA Diseases, have taken no direct action. risk". It suggested that the United States techniques, even though he had previously The advisory council to the National should "pursue fusion on a broad front", told both his university and the two hos Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), primarily into mirror devices but also into pitals involved that he would not do so. however, decided on a harsher penalty than alternative designs. Earlier this year, an investigatory com merely impressing conditions on future After careful review, DoE selected two mittee established by NIH suggested applications. It recommended that Dr of these designs for increased support. One various conditions that should be applied Cline's current grant from the institute be was the reversed field pinch, a combination to future grants applications from Dr terminated on 31 March 1982, the end of of the tokamak and mirror designs. The Cline, who had already resigned as chief of its first year of support. other was the Elmo Bumpy Torus (EBT), the division of haematology /oncology at The grant, a total of $244,000, was to under development at the Oak Ridge UCLA, while retaining his university post have been spread over a period of three National Laboratory in Tennessee (see as professor of oncology. years, and covered research into the effec- 0028-0836181 I 490391-02$01.00 CI981 MacmillanJournalslld .