A time for change

Cancer: is it due to spontaneous genetic mutations or to karyotype and tissue disorganization? Inborn genetic factors or external environmental factors?

AIDS: a new disease resulting from HIV infection, or a collection of old diseases caused by drugs and malnutrition?

Heart disease: is it really caused by high cholesterol, or could it be a consequence of the replacement of traditional foods by processed foods?

Mad cow & Creutzfeld-Jacob disease: due to hyper-infectious prions or metallotoxins?


In each of these examples, the minority dissenters from the scientific mainstream make a very convincing case, but the scientific mainstream is an extremely powerful force, backed by industrial profits, political will, scientific reputations, as well as the hopes and expectations of the general public.

I see two main problems here. One is the failure of genetic reductionism as an approach to human biology. We need to return to studying multiple levels of organization, from the genes of a single cell, to tissues, to organ systems, to individuals, to societies, to our external environment. The other problem is how quickly and extensively non-scientific factors come to entangle issues that should be decided for their own merit based on careful experimentation and observation.

We are conceivably spending trillions of dollars, representing the majority of our healthcare spending and research investment over years or decades, on chasing elusive genetic causes for what are clearly environmental diseases. How many more decades of 'war on cancer' genetic research will we fund while the incidence of, and mortality from, cancer continues to skyrocket? How many more millions of impoverished people will die of AIDS before we decide to spend the money on basic nutrition and sanitation instead of on toxic patented antiviral drugs?

The community of physicists was forced to face the greater social implications of their work once nuclear war became a reality. Perhaps it is time for the community of molecular biologists to face the current social reality, to admit that our work has also been corrupted by corporate and political factors, and actively promote the chanelling of our collective energy towards more productive humanitarian aims.