As the American Council on Science and Health prepares to mark its twenty-fifth anniversary with a celebratory dinner on Dec. 4, here's a quick look back at how things have changed over the years.
The world was different but not all that different in 1978, the year that a plucky pro-science non-profit opened its doors, headed by epidemiologist Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and dedicated to informing the public and opinion-makers about the real health science that is so often obscured by scare stories, activists, con artists, and quacks.
That was a politically tumultuous year, and some of its upheavals still echo:
- Voters in California staged a "tax revolt" with Proposition 13, lowering property taxes by about 57% (and they gave the anti-tax, anti-regulation Libertarian Party candidate 5.5% of the vote in the gubernatorial election)
- Six weeks of widespread strikes in England led to disillusionment with the Labour Party, paving the way for Margaret Thatcher's election the following year.
- Indira Gandhi was ousted from the Indian Parliament for corruption.
- The Sandinistas seized 1,500 hostages, including legislators, in Managua, Nicaragua, foreshadowing their impending takeover of the country.
- Red Brigades terrorist and Marxist professor Antonio Negri participated in the assassination of former Italian premier Aldo Moro, possibly making a phone call to Moro's wife to mock her before killing him (he is today the author of the anticapitalist book Empire and respected by the antiglobalization and antibiotech movements).
- The population of Jonestown, Guyana engaged in a religiously-inspired mass murder/suicide, drinking poisoned fruit punch.
- Ayatollah Khomeini, exiled from Iran to Iraq and then to France, issued calls for Islamic revolution from his temporary headquarters in Paris.
But even amidst those unsettling events, three science stories managed to make headlines and alter the world:
(1) On August 7, President Jimmy Carter declared a state of emergency at Love Canal near Niagara Falls over dumped chemicals detected there and disbursed federal funds to relocate some 900 residents. It was a sign that the environmental movement, considered radical only a decade earlier, had become institutionalized, its fears turned into regulatory edicts and budget priorities.
(2) The world's first "test tube" baby, Louise Brown, was born, and the technique employed in vitro fertilization has since helped bring hundreds of thousands of babies into the world but is still controversial among some pro-life groups.
(3) Smallpox was eradicated around the world.
And ACSH opened the doors of its New York City office. In a way, we've been dealing with iterations of those three science stories ever since:
(1) fear of chemicals (Love Canal was hardly the last scare)
(2) the promise of biotech (even today, opponents of stem cell research and cloning sometimes question the moral acceptability of in vitro fertilization)
(3) the benefits of pharmaceuticals and other medical innovations (indeed, one of the honorees at this week's twenty-fifth anniversary bash will be none other than Dr. D.A. Henderson, who led the World Health Organization's successful global smallpox vaccine program).
I've only been working with ACSH for two years now, but I realize that I'd been listening to its message and admiring the work of people affiliated with ACSH for years before becoming its director of publications, whether I was in college reading about the work of Dr. Bruce Ames (another of Thursday's honorees) that showed natural chemicals can just as easily be "carcinogenic" as man-made ones; working for ABC News's John Stossel (emcee of Thursday night's event), some of whose broadcasts were influenced by ACSH's message about the importance of rational risk assessment; or seeking out ACSH president and founder Dr. Elizabeth Whelan to comment about the cloning controversy for an article I was writing.
As an admirer of science who thinks facts must come before fears and ideology and who in some less articulate way has thought that since I was an eight year-old fan of Star Wars, Star Trek, and science documentaries back in 1978 I have always been an ACSH guy at heart.
It's wonderful timing that I get to attend the twenty-fifth anniversary event after a mere two years' contribution to ACSH. I get to stand on the shoulders of giants, as it were and on Thursday, I also get to rub elbows with some of those giants (such as Nobel-winning agricultural scientist and ACSH board member Norman Borlaug, who is credited with saving an estimated billion people from starvation and for whom comedian-magicians Penn and Teller were kind enough to create a video tribute; other honorees include FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan, former surgeon general C. Everett Koop, and Wall Street Journal editor/columnist Robert Bartley, winner of a Presidential Medal of Freedom).
Ultimately, though, ACSH is rooted in something even bigger than 350 experts who advise us and the other staffers, colleagues, and informal advisors who toil away fighting against scare stories, quackery, and diet fads. That something bigger is the scientific method. Our job isn't to make one industry or set of scientists look good but to defend the abstract processes of peer review, careful data-gathering, and logical argument that keep us all honest and keep reason from giving way to panic.
For one night, we'll party, and then it's back to serious and thoughtful analysis of the latest developments, glorious or absurd, in public health (and for HealthFactsAndFears.com, there'll be a bit of a change shortly after this anniversary: the site will become a "blog," a frequently-updated web log of brief, rapid-fire commentaries on the latest health controversies there should be no shortage of material). So remain calm and rational, and accompany us into the future.