AIDS: CDC report card ....

AIDS: CDC report card ...

An Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on the status of AIDSlaboratory research at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta concludes that morale and productivity within the specific division handling lab work are low, but that there has been no major suppression of data. The report, released last month, also states that while minor tampering with laboratory equipment took place, it caused no serious disruption or delay of experiments, and no significant loss.

The report was prompted by rumors of discontent within thebranch as well as the claims by an outside research group of unnecessary delay in publishing results from a collaboration investigating the ability of a spermicide to prevent AIDS transmission. CDC Director James Mason and Sen. Lowell Weicker (R-Conn.), head of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, asked the IOM to investigate. Of the CDC's 192 full-time AIDS researchers, 27 work in the lab research branch; no questions have been raised about the performance of the other four AIDS divisions.

The IOM committee, part of the National Academy of Sciences,interviewed 31 present or former CDC researchers or collaborators, and investigated related documents. CDC reviions to and clearance for submission of the spermicide data took an unusually long time, but were not suppressed, the committee concluded. It could not rule out "purposeful minor tampering" and noted that it might have been caused by "an environment of distrust and dislike...between selected individuals...." Among their suggestions: that changes be made in the organization and management of the laboratory, that laboratory meetings be held regularly, that authorship policies for research papers be mapped out and that basic and applied research efforts be separated.