ScienceInsider

The creationist chair of the Texas Board of Education, which recently adopted science standards questioning evolution, has been booted from his post by the Texas senate.

A dentist by profession, Don McLeroy lobbied hard on behalf of intelligent design proponents when the board deliberated on new science standards in March. In a vote taken on the floor of the Texas senate yesterday, he received a 19-11 verdict, falling short of the two-thirds majority required for confirmation of gubernatorial appointees. Some of the senators who voted against him—all of them Democrats—criticized him for his anti-evolutionist stance.

McLeroy will remain on the 15-member board, which is currently dominated by conservatives. The rumor is that Governor Rick Perry could now nominate another board creationist, Cynthia Dunbar, to the chair’s post.

—Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

A Geoffrey Beene ad campaign in the June issue of GQ features 11 biomedical scientists (all men) posing with rock stars such as Seal and Sheryl Crow. Why? It seems that the clothing company has a foundation that funds medical research. The campaign aims "to honor the researchers who are saving our lives, to make science rock as a career choice for the next generation, and to raise [stars'] platinum voices in demand for future research funding," the ad says. Coming soon on a Web site, visitors will be able nominate their favorite science rock star or sign a petition asking Congress to increase funding for medical research. This shot features Alzheimer's researcher Rudy Tanzi, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, and geneticist Francis Collins, who seems to be everywhere these days as rumors grow ever louder that he will soon be nominated as director of the National Institutes of Health. (For more details, see the Science Careers blog's take on the ad.)

—Jocelyn Kaiser

On 26 May, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that the swine flu outbreak in the country might have crested. But Donald Olson, a New York City–based epidemiologist who runs the influenza monitoring project at the International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS), disagrees. “If New York City, Boston, and Seattle are indicators of what’s to come for the rest of the country, then we ain’t seen nothing yet,” says Olson.

CDC based its optimistic assessment on “influenza-like illness” (ILI) reported at outpatient clinics in its surveillance network and found a drop in seven of the country’s nine regions (the two exceptions include New York City and Boston). But ISDS collects its own data from a dozen sites around the country, and, as Olson explains, is able to “drill down” and analyze more subtle measurements like fever and severe pneumonia. Their analysis, he says, indicates that the first few weeks of the swine flu outbreak led many people who had respiratory illness and diarrhea—the “worried ill”—to seek medical care. “In normal times, these people would have stayed home sick,” says Olson.

As fear of swine flu has subsided, Olson suspects that fewer of these people have gone to the doctor, leading to drops in reports of ILI that are not accurate indicators of drops in the spread of the novel H1N1 virus that causes swine flu.

Although CDC had also noted increases in Boston and New York City, Olson says his more carefully parsed data show “massive increases” that look “mild” in the CDC regional data. CDC also shows ILI in Seattle dropping down at week 20, which is the opposite of what ISDS finds. Unfortunately, says Olson, no one has systematically collected data about the actual presence of the new H1N1 virus, as it would overtax testing labs. “We’re dealing with so much uncertainty, and we have imperfect measures,” says Olson. “But we need to know what they’re weaknesses are.”

Olson says it’s possible that the epidemic exploded, quickly infected the susceptible population, and will now fade out, but he doubts that, given that New York City has seen the disease peak, drop, and then peak again. “If what New York City has seen in last 10 days is any indication, we’re going to be seeing that everywhere else,” says Olson.

—Jon Cohen

Image Credit: ISDS

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The U.S. National Institutes of Health officials are busy sorting thousands of comments on the agency's proposed stem cell guidelines that poured in up to the deadline of 11 p.m. on 26 May. Last week, acting NIH Director Raynard Kington said the agency had already received 20,000 submissions; officials said today that the final number will likely be considerably higher.

Stem cell advocates have been expressing serious worry that ethical requirements spelled out in the draft guidelines—in particular, informed consent procedures for embryo donors—will rule out the use of many existing human embryonic stem cell lines, including the 21 lines approved under the Bush Administration.

In its comment on the draft policy, the the International Society for Stem Cell Research asks NIH to define some "core principles" covering what is ethically acceptable rather than set explicit rules that might exclude "lines that have been in routine use for the past ten years." Others have called for NIH to "grandfather" in the Bush-approved lines. NIH must issue its final policy by 7 July.

—Constance Holden

Medical charities in the United Kingdom, which account for one-third of all public funding for medical research in the country, are being battered by the economic crisis, according to a survey published this week. Small charities are especially hard-hit.

The U.K.’s Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) surveyed its 117 members and found that more than three-quarters of the organizations expect to be “significantly affected” by the financial meltdown, as income from investments and endowments fall or corporate and personal donations decline—or both. Last financial year, AMRC’s members spent £936 million on research, and although 52% said they hope to maintain that level of research funding, 26% expect to cut it by 10% to 40%.

Smaller charities will bear the brunt of the crisis because “they have more limited reserves to dip into to weather the storm,” says Simon Denegri, chief executive of AMRC. “The real bite could come next year,” he adds, as charities begin drawing on their reserves to plug the financial gap.

The Ataxia-Telangiectasia Society is one of the small charities already feeling the crunch, as 55% of its income relies on trust and foundation money caught up in the interest-rate slump. The charity’s income is down on average 14%, and it has had to cut back on long-term projects owing to the uncertain climate.

As cases of swine flu continue to increase in several countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) maintains that the outbreak does not merit the label "pandemic." And in the United States, which accounts for just over half of the 12,954 confirmed cases of the disease reported to WHO from 46 countries, signs indicate the outbreak may have peaked.

After a week of playing coy, President Barack Obama finally announced his choice to lead NASA on 23 May. He picked two space flight advocates—former astronaut Charles Bolden and Washington lobbyist Lori Garver—to take the jobs of administrator and deputy administrator for the space agency. If Bolden can overcome concerns about his lobbying work for rocket companies and win Senate confirmation, he will have his work cut out for him.

The biomedical research community was buzzing Friday with a rumor that the White House would nominate geneticist Francis Collins that afternoon to head the National Institutes of Health. That did not happen, but Bloomberg later ran a story saying that according to "a source familiar with the selection process," Collins is the leading contender and that vetting "is in the final stages." For months, Collins has been rumored to be on the top candidate to head NIH (see here and here). Sources suggest that the announcement will be made this week.

—Jocelyn Kaiser

Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), today announced the decision to spend $1 billion of existing funds on what a press release gingerly called “steps necessary to prepare for potential commercial-scale production of a candidate vaccine for the novel Influenza A (H1N1).”

Responding to mounting confusion, the World Health Organization (WHO) has sent the definition of a full-scale, phase 6 influenza “pandemic” to the rewrite desk. But no formal revisions have been made yet, leaving the old definition in place, and that says a phase 6 alert should be triggered if two regions of the world have sustained community spread in humans of an animal or animal-human hybrid of a flu virus.