What Does Decreased Funding for Science Mean to the United States?
One of the defining characteristics of scientific research is that it is not specific to any nation or culture. The practice of science may be shaped by locale, but the scientific endeavor is profoundly cosmopolitan. So it is, on the face of it, parochial to ask, "What does decreased funding for science mean to the United States?" Nonetheless, critical choices about funding for scientific research are being made by the United States Congress based on the Congress's understanding of the national interest, so it is pertinent to consider what reduced funding means in that context.
The wealth of the United States, especially since World War II, has enabled this country to become central to scientific endeavor in the world. U.S. funding for science exceeds the gross national product of many smaller nations, and this funding is spread wide and deep across the scientific disciplines. (It could be argued that this very breadth gives U.S. science a special vulnerability.) It is difficult to see U.S. funding for science as the product of one national policy or any single public decision, but rather it seems to have arisen out of thousands of decisions based on the widespread appreciation of science's ability to solve specific problems and progressively enhance technological abilities. The fundamental public understanding has been that as science gets better, life gets better. Such developments as the hydrogen bomb and acid rain illustrate that science is a two-edged sword, but people would rather have the drug that treats or cures their particular disease than die of it. So on this basic but impelling intuition, science has thrived in Western industrial countries, as in other places, and in the United States in particular. Indeed, even in the face of major funding cuts, it seems apocalyptic to talk about the U.S. losing its competitive dominance in science.
Unfortunately, political and financial support for scientific research in the United States has only episodically been viewed as a public goal. The wealth of the United States made it able to assume a central position in the sciences and this resulted, for example, in establishing English as the linguistic currency in many fields of science. Yet it is curious that in the 1980s, when Japanese automobile manufacturers were humiliating their American competitors on U.S. soil, both in terms of sales and in terms of product technology and quality, or when Japan threatened to perform a similar takeover of the computer industry, no one but the Japanese ever pointed out the preeminence of the United States in science; the Japanese studied ways to make their young scientists more independent-minded and creative, like their U.S. colleagues. Here is an area where the United States holds supremacy, where much of the world comes to us for knowledge, and the know-how and ability to advance that knowledge.
The awakening for the United States may come, as it did with the Russian launching of Sputnik in 1957, when the spotlight of scientific advancement shifts beyond our borders--to Canada or Brazil, France or South Africa, or to nations that do not today have a scientific research establishment at all. The Soviets did not attempt to compete with the U.S. in consumer goods to exceed us in space technology. Likewise, with U.S. science funding spread so widely across disciplines, less wealthy nations wouldn't have to challenge the United States across the board, but could pick and choose, the way Bill Gates rose from a "garage business" to challenge IBM by concentrating only on those technologies his firm did uniquely well. As the United States in general becomes more international and multilingual, U.S. scientists will in the future have to master second and subsequent languages to keep up with their subject areas, and this at least raises the possibility that in some fields an increasing amount of the cutting-edge literature could be in languages other than English. This may seem a small point now, but it would not seem so if it happens.
Now is a time when members of Congress sigh and regretfully ask science to prepare for lean years, and it is important to ask them and a wider public to consider the questions: How lean and for how long? And how much are we willing to sacrifice for the future? The sciences--certainly the biomedical sciences--have been an area of dazzling achievements, internationally of course, but nowhere more so than in the United States. Perhaps it would be prideful or chauvanistic to say that the U.S. is the world center for biomedical sciences; our European and Asian colleagues would rightly take exception. But they might agree that the United States serves as a world marketplace for ideas and experimentation, and that is a very high and central position for us to hold. But it is not a divine right, nor is it a position that is uncontested. Is it a position worth holding? Is it apocalyptic or alarmist to ask whether the United States might lose its scientific leadership? The Congress and the people must answer these questions and make this decision over the next several months and years as they decide how much wisdom is thrift, and how much thrift is wisdom.
Thomas R. Hawkins
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
Malaria Control in Zambia and Southern Africa
Since the information on the effect of climate change on vectorborne diseases appeared in
EHP (volume 102, pp. 441-442), I have received requests for additional information on malaria control. I hope that the following information will be helpful to workers who may be interested in investigating the phenomenon of malaria.
Conventional malaria control methods have included vector control using chemical pesticides, mosquito nets, chemotherapy, and, in some cases, a combination of all these methods. Immunization is still a long way off due to problems of developing an effective vaccine. Of all the methods used, the most effective and long-lasting solution is the eradication of the vector mosquito Anopheles. Where mosquito control has relied on chemical pesticides, there has been a problem with the mosquito developing resistance to the pesticides as well as environmental side effects stemming from pesticide use. The poor economies of most developing countries such as Zambia have led to breakdown of vector control programs because there are no budget allocations for these programs. Malaria control in these countries has relied on "react and cure," using antimalarial drugs, even though this method does not offer a permanent solution and is generally more expensive than vector control in the long run. In Zambia, mosquito populations actively follow seasonal changes, which implies that malaria transmission follows seasonal patterns.
Global climatic changes in Zambia and southern Africa have put a lot of stress on humans and higher vertebrates because of severe, prolonged droughts, which mean less food and less water. Although no study has been carried out to assess the effects on invertebrates such as mosquitoes, it is possible that these invertebrates are also experiencing survival stress due to climatic changes. Zambia experiences relatively extreme low and high temperature changes, ranging from below zero in the cold, dry season to over 33°C in the hot, dry season. The cold, dry season is short, usually three months, with average temperatures of 10-11°C. Night temperatures are usually lower than 10°C, making most terrestrial, cold-blooded invertebrates, including the mosquito, very inactive and therefore not able to transmit parasites because their feeding habit is impaired. This is crucial because the Anopheles mosquito is generally a nightfeeder, and disease transmission occurs at night. It has been proven that transmission is significantly reduced by sleeping under a mosquito net.
In Zambia, malaria incidence is lowest during the cold season, and this can only be attributed to low temperatures which significantly affect mosquito feeding and breeding behavior, as life cycle is longer in the cold season compared to the hot season. Temperature change is therefore a critical factor to be exploited in malaria control. Any additional stress that can be put on the mosquito will threaten its existence and ability to transmit malaria. In Zambia, therefore, the three-month cold, dry season is the critical period for breaking the malaria transmission cycle.
During the three-month dormant period, due to decreased transmission, the parasite is usually present in many humans who carry the parasite but do not suffer disease due to resistance. It is this group that could become the source of infection during the hot season. Elimination of the parasite in the carriers will mean eliminating the possible source of infection. This would call for strategic chemotherapy guided by parasitological results.
Although the hot, dry season has the most conducive temperatures and therefore the highest activity period for mosquitoes, the current droughts being experienced in southern Africa have become a serious threat to mosquito breeding, as there are fewer breeding places due to lack of water. It is therefore possible to eliminate mosquitoes by eliminating breeding places. This period is another extra three months before rains begin. Strategic mosquito control based on environmental factors influenced by climate changes offers hope for eradicating malaria from Zambia and other countries with similar climates. Mosquito control during these harsh periods could be more effective than the current react and cure methods, which do not consider environmental factors critical for survival of the mosquito. Strategic mosquito control backed by chemotherapy in the cold, dry season and hot, dry season offers a real possibility for eradicating malaria.
James S. Phiri
Environmental Council of Zambia
Lusaka, Zambia
Last Update: May 16, 1997