[summary]

I would like to focus on four points:

1) The discourse on science policy issues has been dominated by two extremist ideologies: libertarianism and conservative fundamentalism, with the former holding that there should be no constraints on science, and the later holding that the constraints on science are determined by religious evangelical principles. These two ideologies have generated the new false idols of the mind: the free market, and faith-based science.

2) These ideologies have staked out separate spheres of influence: the religious conservatives have purview over government policy, and the libertarians have the private sector. So you have two systems of ethics, one for the government and one for the private sector, with the universities straddling both.

3) Traditional sector boundaries are disappearing, notably that between academia and the private market. This has generated a crisis in the integrity of science. Drug manufacturers are running clinical trials of drugs. Manufacturers of cancer drugs are taking over management of cancer treatment centers.

4) The corporate capitalist and the neo-conservative fundamentalist agendas have found their rapproachement: the religious right wants complete bans, and thus resists practical compromises, and while the private sector wants complete freedom, and thus also resists practical compromise.

I would like to extend and illustrate these points further:

Between the two poles - messianic libertarianism, in which "science can do no wrong," and religious fundamentalism, in which "science must conform to God's will" - the progressive voice has been lost.

The American universities are in a crisis of public confidence: universities have become technology transfer mills, and faculty members have become entrepreneurs, setting up companies and trading on the prestige of their universities. Until, like Enron, the house of cards collapses.

A tragic example is the case of Jesse Gelsinger, the eighteen year old who altruistically volunteered to be a subject in a gene therapy experiment, and died as a result of it. Only after his death did his family learn that the lead clinical investigator and the University of Pennsylvania had financial interests in a company posed to profit by a successful outcome of the experiment.

Many more examples of situations in which the lure of profits have compromised science and medicine can be cited.

Human biotechnology has opened up vast new avenues for creating wealth. Some of these are based on pure deception and crass hyperbole. Others build on human foibles and desires for perfection, however unrealistic.

"By complicating life, science creates new opportunities for wrong-doing." That was said by J.B. Haldane in the 1930's.

Consider further the case of human gene therapy. Experiments began in 1980, outside the United States. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars, and great expectations of cures, a total of only 14 cases of a genetic disease - SCIDS - have been treated successfully, and in two of these the patients acquired leukemia caused by the experiment itself.

Hundreds of companies have been formed, and more continue to be formed, to develop and promote a technology that has produced so little. The investors still come. How can this be?

The Assisted Reproductive Technology industry, and the cosmetic surgery industry, are large and growing, but they would grow into the stratosphere if everyone felt compelled to use their techniques.

This is consistent with the strategies used by big Pharma: break down the concept of normalcy. Everyone should be perfect. All post-menopausal women should be on HRT. All people should be on cloresterol-lowering drugs. All embryos should be genetically modified. Just superimpose what we know about the cosmetic surgery industry onto the prospect of genetic enhancement, run by the biotech and the assisted reproduction industries.

The triple winners of techno transfer - the university, government, business - leave out the public interest.

More conflict of interest, more trade secrecy, more bias, loss of disinterestedness, breakdown in scientific integrity. These are the outcomes of the commercialization of the American universities.

So what can progressives do? There are several things:

1. Support organizations working on these issues, such as the Council for Responsible Genetics, the Center for Genetics and Society, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

2. Call for transparency in all forms of scientific and political activity. There needs to be public disclosure of conflicts of interest among scientists on advisory committees. There needs to be public data bases for clinical trials, not only for the protocols but for the results as well.

3. Insist that sector divisions be maintained. There should be complete separation of:
a) academic researchers, and those with a financial interest in the outcomes of the research;
b) those testing drugs and other therapeutics, and those with a financial interest in the results of the tests; and
c) those with a fiduciary interest over patients, and those with financial interest in particular treatments.

4. Reinstitute the Office of Technology Assessment, which provided much useful information to the Congress and the public.