U.S. House of Representatives
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
National Science Policy Hearing
Communicating Science and Engineering in a Sound-Bite World
Thursday, May 14, 1998
Testimony of Stuart M. Zola, Ph.D.
Associate Research Career Scientist, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Diego and
Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences,
School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego
My Background: I am a research neuroscientist at the VA Medical Center in San Diego where I hold the position of Research Career Scientist, and I am a Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego. The VA Medical Center is closely affiliated with the UCSD School of Medicine and is just a few hundred yards from the Medical School campus and my research laboratory at UCSD. I, and many of my colleagues, hold joint appointments at both institutions.
As indicated in the accompanying CV, I have served on committees at both institutions as well as committees at national organizations. For the present purposes, I outline briefly three committee positions I have held, because they are germane to my testimony. (1) During the years 1993-1997, I was the Chair and Director of the Graduate Program in Neurosciences at UCSD. We have approximately 110 faculty members, and admit approximately 10-12 PhD candidates each year. The Graduate Program in Neurosciences at UCSD was ranked first of all graduate neuroscience programs in the United States in an evaluation completed in 1996 by the National Research Council. (2) I served as Chair of the UCSD Animal Subjects Committee (1986-1993). This Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) is mandated by federal regulations to oversee all aspects of the use of animals in teaching and research at UCSD (including, husbandry, housing, postoperative care, behavioral testing, and euthanasia). (3) During 1993-1997, I served as Chair of the 26,000-member Society for NeuroscienceÂ’s Committee on Animals in Research (CAR). CAR deals with animal research issues that have national importance to the research and biomedical community.
Brief Overview of Our Research Program: Research in my laboratory, which uses nonhuman primates, is directed at the development of an animal model of human amnesia and clarifying the way memory is organized in the brain. Specifically, our research has helped identify with certainty brain structures within the medial temporal lobe region of the brain that are important for memory and has begun to determine systematically how individual structures within the medial temporal lobe contribute to memory function. These achievements have been major goals in the neuroscience of memory since medial temporal lobe amnesia was first described in humans in the 1950s.
In parallel with this work in monkeys, we carry out work with human patients who have memory deficits as a result of damage to the medial temporal lobe. This work is done in collaboration with my long-term neuroscientist colleague at the VA Medical Center, Dr. Larry Squire. Extensive neuropathologic information has recently been obtained from several well-studied amnesic patients whose damage was limited to the medial temporal lobe. Such cases are rare, but they have helped to inform us further about the role in memory of specific brain structures and they provide evidence of the validity and importance of the findings from our work with animal models.
Significance of Our Research: The findings from our studies of memory impairment in monkeys with experimentally induced lesions in the medial temporal lobe relate to several human disorders that involve memory. For example in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), where memory impairment is typically the earliest symptom, there is considerable evidence that the medial temporal lobe brain regions where the most prominent pathological alterations occur are precisely the regions we have identified as important for memory in the monkey. Human memory impairment associated with pathology in the medial temporal lobe region is also prominent after anoxic/ischemic events, encephalitis, head trauma, and chronic stress. Finally, memory problems are an important issue in the increasingly aged normal population.
Basic Research vs. Applied Research: As efforts continue to develop treatments for human memory disorders, and to prevent memory deterioration, it will be important to fully understand the neurological organization of memory. The research that my laboratory and other neuroscience laboratories are carrying out attempts to gather fundamental information about the organization of memory and its neurological foundations. This kind of research is often referred to as “basic research” because it does not necessarily involve direct benefits to medical patients, unlike “applied research” which is intended to benefit patients directly.
Nevertheless, basic research is highly relevant to patient care and to the eventuality of developing effective interventions and treatments for brain-associated memory problems. Knowledge generated by neuroscience research has led to important advances in understanding of diseases and disorders that affect the nervous system and in the development of treatments that reduce suffering in humans and animals. This knowledge also makes a critical contribution to our understanding of ourselves, the complexities of our brains, and what makes us human. Continued progress in understanding how the brain works and further advances in treating and curing disorders of the nervous system require investigations of complex functions at all levels in living nervous systems. Because no adequate alternatives exist, much of this research must be done on animal subjects.
Indeed, as I described earlier, much of the focus of our research directed at understanding how memory works has depended on the use of experimental animals, particularly nonhuman primates. In our work, we first neurosurgically remove a portion of the brain in monkeys that our research with amnesic patients has suggested might be important for memory. The neurosurgery is carried out under anesthesia, so that the monkey experiences no pain or discomfort, and the surgery is done under sterile conditions, just as human neurosurgery. Indeed, we sometimes carry out the surgical techniques together with neurosurgeons from affiliated hospitals who scrub in to gain neurosurgical experience, and to follow the animals during postoperative recovery.
Following recovery, we use a series of simple and complex behavioral tasks of memory, to assess the impact of the brain lesion on various aspects of memory function. The behavioral portion of the study sometimes lasts for two years or more, because we assess memory periodically after surgery to determine whether initial deficits are long-lasting or transient. Eventually, we must euthanize the animals in order to evaluate the brain lesions and to determine the relationship between the locus and extent of damage and the presence or absence of behavioral impairment. We can study this relationship systematically in animals because we can prepare groups of animals with the same lesion. In human cases, nature typically does not honor anatomical boundaries and the damage is too variable from patient to patient. Using animals, we have been able to map out a memory system in the brain, i.e., a groups of interconnected structures in the brain that are critical for memory in humans.
Problems in the Communication of Science: It was this aspect of my work, the part of my basic research involving animals, that eventually got me involved with issues about communicating science to the public. That is, my work with animals became the focus of considerable efforts by animal rights activists, both locally and nationally. Until my work became a focus of the activists, I felt that my “job” was to clarify how the brain worked and to carry out high quality research and to do the research in a humane and ethical way. That was the job, after all for which I was being paid, and it was also the intellectual activity that I liked doing best. But the activists were telling a different story. A local group of activists attempted to discredit my research and the research of my colleagues that used animals, and claimed that we were in animal-related research “just for the money and job security” and that not only was basic research that used animals useless, but that we were “torturing” animals, and in all ways animal research was inhumane.
This was a terrible situation for me and for other scientists in the community around San Diego, some of whose research was also being attacked. We found ourselves on the defensive, against a well-organized, well-financed, animal rights movement that caught us completely unprepared and ignorant about how to respond effectively. We had not supposed that we would have to defend the fact that we were doing work that was so obviously important. We presumed that the public was generally well-informed about science and they would surely recognize the fallacious nature of the claims of the activists. But instead the public began to question whether the research was necessary, why we needed to use animals, and whether research that was done with animals had any applicability to human medical conditions. Moreover, this was happening not just in San Diego, but at research institutes all around the country.
In the context of attempting to counter the claims by the activists about animal research, I began to notice that they consistently distorted scientific facts and often simply made outright fallacious claims about science or the scientific process. For example, they claimed that the use of dogs obtained from pounds for research purposes was inappropriate because researchers using the dogs didnÂ’t know anything about the genetic background of the dogs. The activists claimed that unless genetic background was controlled for in a research study, the results would be too variable and the science would be bad. But this is not necessarily true. For some kinds of research it might be important to know the genetic history of the subjects, but for other kinds of research, controlled genetic background would not be relevant. Indeed, the research that led to the successful development of the cardiac bypass surgical techniques that currently extend the lives of thousands of individuals each year, depended to a large extent on research using dogs obtained from pounds, i.e., dogs for whom the genetic backgrounds were quite variable and unknown.
As another example of distorted and fallacious claims, activists declared that we no longer needed to use animals in any research because we now had computer models available, and other alternatives to the use of whole animals, like cell cultures and tissue culture techniques. This sounds like a compelling argument, but it turns out to be rather simplistic. Computer models have been successfully developed in a variety of research areas, for example there are computer models that are used to study certain cognitive functions, some forms of simple problem solving for example. However, there are myriad research areas for which no computer models exist, for example, a wide range of issues associated with brain functions, like learning and memory, and for numerous medical conditions. Cell culture and tissue culture techniques can be informative for studying the function of isolated components of a system, and can help identify the potential toxicity or medical benefits of compounds in the early stages of investigation. But it is usually the case that we need to understand function in the context of a whole, intact system, made up of interrelated organs and organ systems, where there can be many different influences on a particular function.
The Impact of Scientific Illiteracy. The claims about animal research and about the process of science in general that were being made by the animal activists seemed not unreasonable on the surface. And because they were not being effectively disputed by the scientific community, the distortions and untruths about science and the scientific process were often accepted without question by the general public Moreover, claims of abuse of animals were often being accepted at face value by the general public and by legislators, who were beginning to generate legislation that would further regulate research using animals.
As a result, in the mid 1980Â’s I became interested in the issue of communicating science to the general public and to legislators, as well. I was, at that time, Chair of the Animal Subjects Committee at UCSD and I knew that we ranked very high in our science (UCSD is consistently in the top 10 or 12 institutions in the country in terms of grant funding received) and in our humane treatment of animals. A small group of individuals at UCSD began to develop counter arguments to the claims of the activists, and to speak out at animal rights gatherings in San Diego. However, it soon became clear that in terms of educating people about science, it was not the animal rights activists whom we should target. Their views were unlikely to be changed by us. Instead, we determined that we should focus on the general public, and on legislators.
Before embarking on this process in a serious way, I wanted to insure that I would have the support from the highest level of the University. I did this because there was no doubt that once I started speaking out, I would become a target of the activists, and I wanted to make sure the University was completely supportive and would continue to be supportive even during what would likely become a focus of controversy and bad press for the University. In addition I wanted some assurance that this activity which would surely have impact on my research productivity would not impact my academic trajectory in terms of promotions.
Accordingly, I went to see the Chancellor of U.C.S.D. to present the idea that we ought to be taking a proactive strategy on this issue. My view was that we shouldnÂ’t just act defensively. Instead, we should be out there telling the public about the important research being carried on at UCSD in cardiology, and brain sciences, and other areas. And what kinds of problems our scientists are working on, and what we have discovered, and what this means for all of us in terms of potential treatments and cures for medical conditions or for the advancement of knowledge, and what an important role animals have played. That is, we should take proactive responsibility for communicating to the public, in lay terms, the excitement and the value of science.
The Chancellor at that time was Richard Atkinson (now President of the University of California), and he was very enthusiastic and supportive of these ideas. Indeed, in retrospect, an important lesson we learned is that it is critical that institutional officials, at the highest level, recognize the importance of communicating science to the public, and encourage faculty to speak to the public about science and scientific issues, including the issue of the use of animals in biomedical research. Some of my colleagues around the country were not so fortunate with their administrations, and did not have the success that we did.
I became the spokesperson for the University on the issue of the use of animals in research and in explaining science and the scientific process to the general public. Accordingly, I did many radio talk shows, both call-in and debate formats, TV interviews, and print media interviews, on the issues of science and the use of animals in research. Whenever the animal rights activists had a demonstration, I provided the media with the “balance”, giving the perspective of a scientist, explaining calmly and simply what we knew about how the brain worked, for example, and why computer models canÂ’t replace studies with whole behaving animals, and that the animals are treated humanely, and that they (the reporters) were welcome to visit any of our laboratories at any time and talk to the scientists who were actually carrying out the research that the animal rights activists had so badly distorted.
Additionally, I began to visit legislators, locally and nationally, to discuss the process of basic research, what it was, why it was important, the critical role that animals played, and how important it is to the research process to insure that our animal subjects, like our human patients, were always treated humanely. These visits to legislators were perhaps the most rewarding because I often got comments from them that, although they had many animal activists visit them, I was the first scientist who had ever come to discuss these issues with them. They were thankful for the information and for our discussions, because they wanted to “do the right thing”. But, until scientists began to talk to legislators directly, they were often as misinformed about science and the scientific process and the benefits of animal research as the general public. As a result, educating the legislators became a high priority because they were responsive to their constituents.
During this time I established good working and personal relationships with many legislators as well as leaders of all the federal regulatory agencies that govern animal research. Accordingly, I continue to be called upon by them for advice and consultation. Indeed, during the past several years I served on six national panels with officials from the O.P.R.R., the N.I.H., the U.S.D.A. and American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC; now, AAALAC, International). AAALAC is the “gold standard” accrediting agency for research facilities in the United States. In addition, I continue to interact frequently with the several national and state organizations that deal with educating the public about science and about the animal rights issue on behalf of the research community, e.g., the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR), the Foundation for Biomedical Research (FBR), and the California Biomedical Research Association (CBRA). I have served as a panelist for their national meetings, and I have made several trips to Capitol Hill to discuss the issues about basic research and the use of animals in research personally with individual members of Congress.
While I did come under attack from animal rights activists and my family was threatened, nothing serious ever happened, and I continue to speak to the public about scientific issues. As I gained more experience talking with the public I realized that the public was eager to learn the facts, and once they had the facts, they usually came out on the appropriate side of the issue. Overall, we have been quite successful in countering the misconceptions about science promulgated by the activists. Indeed, it seems that each year there is less organized activity on the part of the activists.
Although successful, this has not come without some cost. Initially, my research productivity did suffer somewhat. Fortunately, I had several very good students who were able to keep our research going. Additionally, the University was supportive and took into account all of my activities on its behalf, and my academic promotions occurred on schedule. In a way, my students got cheated a bit because I was not able to mentor them as fully as I would if I were not involved in all of the educational activities directed at the public and the legislators. On the other hand, my students and my research assistant gained some benefit from this activity as well. Several of them have given talks at schools about what it means to be a scientist, they have come away from these experiences full of enthusiasm, and they see it as their continued obligation as scientists and researchers to communicate to the public about what it is that they do and why it might be important. Moreover, after the first year or so of my activities, some of my colleagues became interested in following suit.
The University actively encouraged additional faculty to become spokespersons. The Administration helped organize and pay for media training sessions. In these sessions, local radio and TV reporters would come and hold mock press conferences and interviews with the faculty being trained. These sessions are videotaped and then played back so that the reporters can critique our responses to questions and suggest how we might better develop our responses into sound bites. The media training sessions were originally made available to train faculty to respond effectively to questions about the use of animals in research, but it turned out to be such an effective training experience, that we use it now for training faculty to talk effectively about a wide range of scientific issues. Some of us have gotten so good at this over the years, that we can pretty much predict which sentences we have said at an interview are the ones that will make it onto TV that night. The Administration of the University has realized the value of having many of its scientists be able to speak with ease to the media and the public about the research they do. This has had a positive impact on the view of the citizens of the communityÂ’s about the role of the University in their lives, and it has had a positive impact on fund raising and gift endowments at the University.
Moreover, as a result of having a critical mass of individuals able to communicate science effectively to the public, the University developed a SpeakerÂ’s Bureau, which now consists of 20-30 scientists from all realms of science research being carried out at the University. The SpeakerÂ’s Bureau has been well-publicized in San Diego, and we routinely get calls from schools, fraternal organizations, clubs, and businesses throughout San Diego requesting speakers.
Overall, I think we have to keep the public as well as legislators informed and also excited about science and the process of scientific discovery. They need to understand the importance of what they are being asked to allocate funds for. I believe that scientists have an additional responsibility in their jobs, and that is to communicate effectively not just with each other but with the general public. We need to be able to tell the public in lay terms what is so exciting for many of us and what keeps us up at night. It is not necessarily the case that every scientist should be out there talking up science. Some terrific and highly respected scientists are simply not good at communicating the excitement of science to a live audience. But for those who are, there ought to be support and encouragement for this activity from the highest levels of their institution. Otherwise, how will we recruit the next generation of scientists?