U.S. Science Research
Is in Danger of Losing
Place on Cutting Edge
August 12, 2005

News last week that scientists in South Korea had cloned a dog -- something no other researchers had ever managed -- was more surprising for the what than the who. Dogs are notoriously tough to clone, so the achievement was unexpected. But the scientists who pulled it off were exactly the ones the smart money had bet on.

In 2004, they cloned the first human embryo and extracted stem cells from it; earlier this year they became the first to create new lines of embryonic stem cells containing the DNA of patients with diseases or injuries, the first step toward cellular therapies custom tailored to a patient's genetic profile.

The fact that Seoul has become Cloning and Stem Cell Central has ratcheted up a concern that has been growing for years: Is the U.S. losing its decades-long pre-eminence in science? And if so, does it matter?

The numbers suggest that the answer to the first question is yes. According to the National Science Foundation, the U.S. share of scientific and engineering papers (a measure of how much knowledge researchers are generating) has been on a steady decline. From almost 40% in 1988, the U.S. share had fallen to 30% by 2001 (the last year for which the count is in), and is likely even lower now. That reflects, in particular, the rising scientific output of China, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

As recently as 1995, the U.S. was the top producer of scientific knowledge, with about 200,000 papers. Since then, Western Europe has sprinted past, producing almost 230,000 papers in 2001. The U.S. was stalled at 200,000. Asia graduates more science and engineering Ph.D.s than the U.S. does; Europe graduates 50% more.

Unless you treat science the way the media do Olympics, with country-by-country medal counts obscuring the inspiring achievements, it's not obvious why the U.S.'s fall from dominance should cause concern, at least for patients. Ill Americans benefit from the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, invented in a lab in Belgium. The extract that formed the basis for the cholesterol-lowering drug Mevacor emerged from a lab in Spain. Americans don't need a passport to benefit from either.

That more smart people around the world are making more discoveries "portends well for the future of all humankind," Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, argued in an editorial in Science.

"Do we have to trump the entire world?" he asked me rhetorically. "Probably not. That more papers are coming from outside the U.S. doesn't upset me nearly as much as the fact that cutting-edge scientists are leaving because they can't do research here" as a result of strict limits on human embryonic stem-cell studies. (It is illegal to use federal money for research like the Koreans', for example.) "This overlay of values onto research is a very alarming development." [1]

That's the nub of it. It's one thing to lose pre-eminence, it's quite another to lose eminence, and that's where the U.S. is heading.

"Americans are rightfully proud of the research we do, but this is not the only place really great science is being done these days," says Evan Snyder of the Burnham Institute, La Jolla, Calif., a leader in stem-cell research. "Countries that never had a tradition of cutting-edge biomedical research now have an entrée as a result of U.S. [stem-cell] policy. Americans are at a disadvantage in not having the opportunity to develop the technical know-how."

One sign of how besieged he and others feel: Lab space financed with private or state money for studies that can't be legally done with federal money is called a "safe haven."

Allowing a minority opinion to stifle research is only one symptom of politics undermining science. Some appointees to federal scientific advisory panels have been chosen for their ideology rather than their expertise; staffers with no research credentials alter the scientific (not only the policy) content of reports on climate change. Politicians' attacks on the science of evolution continue, even though "intelligent design" may make a fascinating lesson for a philosophy class, but is not biology.

"This anti-scientism couldn't be more damaging to young people contemplating devoting their life to research," says neuroscientist Ira Black, whose own stem-cell institute in New Jersey has been stalled by political red tape. "The sense of opportunity that was always predominant in the U.S. now lies elsewhere."

Since scientific innovation has long fueled economic growth, there is a danger "that the U.S. will no longer be dominant in innovation," says G. Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology and a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. "A larger number of international patents are being obtained overseas, R&D facilities are moving overseas. If we are not innovating here, the economic benefits will go elsewhere, too."

An interesting battle will come when a lab in Singapore or Seoul or Britain uses embryonic stem cells to develop a therapy for diabetes or Parkinson's or heart disease. Its use in the U.S. would require approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Will opponents of stem-cell research demand that the FDA reject it and deprive patients of their only hope?

• You can email me at sciencejournal@wsj.com.

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American-Buddha Librarian's Comment: 

[1] What a bunch of crap. As if everybody in every country had to be the same and do the same things. As if Americans couldn't take a moral stand and be considered the better for it. Our values should inform absolutely everything that we do. Doing things merely for experimental sake is not human. These scientists may as well go play with their own shit. They remind me of that story about the chance that an infinite number of monkeys working for an infinite time could produce a work of Shakespeare. Very unlikely to happen.

And who is thinking of the animals? What right do we have to torture these animals, to experiment on them for any purpose whatsoever? It may sound ridiculous to say that I care for the mice, but I do. They have the right to exist unharmed by our sadism. These scientists say they are trying to benefit humans, but how can benefit come from disregarding the rights of animals? Scientists are looking for power, the secrets of the universe -- well, they are never going to find it as they pursue a path of torture and killing. We would be so much better off trying to communicate with animals. It is better for people to die than to experiment on animals. We should respect life as nature gave it to us.