Thirty years ago today my father died for defending truth and honesty in science.
Howard J. Eisen studied steroid hormone receptors.
I spent the summer of 1986, following my freshman year in college, working at the NIH, and got to know a bit about my father's work. When I came home for Thanksgiving that fall, he was distracted, scribbling on papers and working out all sorts of stuff on pads of paper. It turns out he had discovered that someone in his group had committed fraud - making up data - and he had designed a trap to catch him. For months he worked diligently to expose the fraud carried out by a scientist he had not hired and did not supervise. He succeeded, and the NIH launched an investigation. But the perpetrator of the fraud fled and did not appear to be questioned. Instead of celebrating my father as a hero, it appears that the NIH turned on him instead. I don't know exactly what happened with the investigation, but he felt the NIH was accusing him of letting the fraud happen. I have filed FOIA requests to try and find out what went on in the hearings, but I never received any useful information. But on 2/7/87 my father, who had apparently struggled with depression his whole life (I never knew) hung himself in our basement. I was 19 - a sophomore in college - and it absolutely wrecked me. I went into a tailspin that took me almost a decade to really come out of.
I sleepwalked through the rest of college, and started graduate school more or less out of default. Without some really amazing friends I never would have made it through those next few years. I also took refuge in animals and the woods - two things my father loved and taught me to love. I was successful in grad school, but, honestly, I was completely nuts - afraid of everything and lost in spiraling OCD. Somehow I pulled myself out of it (that's a story for another day). As I got more clearheaded, I had a deep conflict in my mind to resolve. My father was the most sincere, honest & devoted scientist there could be. But "science" and its institutions in a very real way killed him. This conflict has been with me my whole career, as I have become more and more a part of those institutions. I trust and love science, but deeply distrust its institutions - they care more about themselves than the people who make them work. And so I ask you, in my father's memory, as you fight for science, also fight to make science a more supportive and caring enterprise. So when you fight for the place of science in the world, also be willing to stand up to our own scientific institutions. And above all else, remember that scientists are not machines, but people, with all their incumbent weaknesses, who often need our support.