A final post on the Science + Society Conference that took place in Boston last weekend (see the first and second posts):

NOVA/WGBH producer Larry Klein, a panelist on a Science in the Media session, argued that the gap between science and society that was the focus of the conference is not a gap unique to science. He noted that a similar gap exists between society and other areas of knowledge (including knowledge of the political process and world affairs) and that perhaps it is best to frame the issue as an education gap: educated elites version non-elites.

So it all comes down to education. Not a surprise, but a good point to make nonetheless. Al Gore, in his keynote talk, noted that “retrofitting new technologies [such as the Internet] into old educational setting[s]” is unlikely to accomplish much; he argues that “we need to re-think education.”

This weekend’s Science and Society conference that took place at the Westin Copley Place Hotel in Boston brought together an interesting assortment of people interested in science and science communication. Scientists, documentary filmmakers, high school teachers and college science professors, science museum workers, science communication specialists, students…the list goes on! It was wondeful to see such a diverse group of science-philes interested in ways to increase scientific literacy amongst the general public.

As a science journalist, I was particularly interested in listening to Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and professor of science journalism at one of my alma maters, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Blum was on a “Science in the Media” panel, along with science writer Timothy Ferris, NOVA/WGBH science program producer Larry Klein, and Howard University Television’s Jennifer Lawson.

Blum noted a disturbing trend over the last decade or so: science sections of newspapers, once considered trendy, are becoming less prominent, and more likely to contain news you can use, health- and medical-oriented stories at the expense of articles on basic research. This seems like a huge problem to me, since stories about basic research can give what most people at the conference think is painfully missing amongst the public: an understanding of how scientists think, how they reach conclusions, what it means to provide a scientific explanation over other kinds of explanations, and the like.

Blum also noted that the loss of science sections is not a 100% tragedy, as long as science appears elsewhere in the newspaper, and it does, including on the front page, along with political, economic, and other kinds of page 1 news. In some ways, this is a really good thing: to view science as part of the normal state of things, as a factor as important to the fabric of our lives as other factors, is a way to reduce the gap between science and the public.

What is the nature of that gap, and is it unique to science? Stay tuned for the next post…

Today was the first day of Science + Society (see the conference website), a conference that looks for ways to narrow the gap between scientists and the general public.

Al Gore was one of the keynote speakers. As a journalist, it pained me to hear the woman who introduced Gore specifically emphasize that the former vice-president’s talk was off-the-record (and therefore, I presume not something the press can report on); this is not exactly a great way to narrow the gap between scientific experts (Gore is certainly an expert on global warming) and the public, is it? There must have been at least a few other people in the room who thought about this irony.

In any event, if Gore’s talk was really off-the-record, I guess I really can’t write about what he actually said.

I think what I can say is this: hearing him speak—he made references to CP Snow, John Scopes, ancient Rome and Greece, Galileo, the Enlightenment, Hannah Arendt, and lots of other people and places and ideas that the current president is, in all likelihood, not particularly conversant with—just reinforced the idea that had Gore become president, the world would be, and look like, a completely different place right now. Science might be in the forefront of the administration, even.

Gore’s humor, though, was the best part of the afternoon. For instance, during a question-and-answer session, Gore was asked by moderator Lester Crystal of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions what it was like, considering the success of An Inconvenient Truth, to be a movie star of sorts. Gore replied: “What do you mean, ‘of sorts’”?

This was just one of many comedic gems. For instance, Gore noted that now that he is a private citizen, he has gone from traveling on Air Force One to having to take his shoes off as he goes through airport security. Welcome to the world of the huddled masses, Mr. Ex-Vice Presdient, Mr. Should-Have-Been-President, and now, Mr. King-of-Comedy at Science and Society.

Since Nature Network Boston is all about the Boston scientific scene, I think it’s good to think about how all the non-stop science/health news about trans fat really affects us here at home.

So, when I thought about what makes the trans fat issue a truly local one, I thought about one of my long-time favorites:

Dunkin’ Donuts.

Yes, if you’d like an example of how the trans fat issue affects you right here in New England, every time you walk by a Dunkin’ Donuts, and every time you buy and eat a donut, think about this:

The old fashioned cake donut? 4 grams of trans fat!
The powdered cake donut? Ditto
The chocolate frosted donut? Ditto +1

In fact, just about every donut has from 2.5 to 5 grams of trans fat.

I’m not sure if Dunkin’ lists nutritional information in the stores—I’ve never seen anything along these lines—but all this info is available on the company’s website (see here). It’s really great that the company posts this information online, but it’d be even more effective (though bad for business, I’m sure) if it was displayed on big posters by each cash register, just as the customer is about to plop down some cash for some Munchkins (by the way, 4 powdered cake munchkins have 4 grams of trans fat, ie., one munchkin=1 gram of trans fat). Considering that it’s impossible to eat only 4 munchkins, the tiny little creatures seem even more dangerous than their bigger and brawnier cousins known as donuts.

In any event, considering all we know about trans fat, had I seen easily visible displays of this nutritional information, I would have stopped eating the donuts and munchkins a long time ago, and won’t eat them again, until Dunkin’ finds a trans fat substitute. To see what donut makers may or may not be doing to address the issue, see this article. It notes that Dunkin’ has been experimenting with 22 different oils, to find a trans fat replacement. Wow!

The bottom line is simple: stick with the bagel (a plain bagel with cream cheese? Zero trans fat).

Just when I thought it was safe to blog about a non-trans fat item, along comes Starbucks, forcing my hand. (My 2008 New Year’s Resolution: post fewer trans fat-themed entries)

According to yesterday’s news (see article), the scones I have previously eaten at the coffee chain will no longer contain trans fats, as the company is eliminating trans fat from its food items in Boston, as well as in other cities.

Now I’m looking forward to going to a Boston Starbucks—the one on Harvard Street, in Coolidge Corner, is where I often go—and ordering a scone, confident in the knowledge that while the calories and saturated fat will still soar, at least the trans fat menace will have disappeared.

With all the talk about trans fat recently, I did some internet searching to find some interesting sites that might have something to contribute to the topic.

I came across BanTransFats.com

This is a non-profit organization in California dedicated to, well, the web site name is self-explanatory.

From this site—along with confirmation from the American Heart Association—I learned that I have been a little bit too proud of myself for eating foods with no trans fat, since foods that contain the label “zero trans fat” can still, in fact, contain trans fat. Indeed, labels can read “zero trans fat” as long as the item contains less than 0.5 grams of the most reviled substance (at least for now) in the food we eat.

But, as BanTransFats notes, if you eat many servings of a “zero trans fat” food that actually contains, say, .4 grams of trans fat per serving, well, before you know it, you’ve eaten quite a bit of the stuff.

So, looking at labels isn’t enough—you really have to read ingredient lists as well, and if you see “partially-hydrogenated oil” on the list, well, you’re in trouble from a trans fat perspective.

I can’t see any justification for having trans fat in food any more, so I’m glad NYC is banning it, and Boston is thinking of doing the same.

But I’m also thinking about this: according to reports, (see article) people eat four times as much saturated fat as they do trans fat.

Can public health departments, non-profits, etc., do to saturated fat what they have recently done to trans fat? If we’re eating 4x as much of it…

There is an interesting article in this week’s Boston Globe (see story) on a greater acceptance amongst members of the medical community in doing advocacy work. According to the article, in the past, there was a belief that doctors could effect social change simply by generating sound scientific data from medical research. Now there is a realization that relying on the data isn’t enough, since people in policy positions, such as, well, many (the majority?) of our politicians don’t place as high a value on data as scientists do. I’d go further and say that most policymakers probably don’t even understand the data, which is not necessarily a knock against them; knowledge is so specialized these days, where often it is only a small group of experts who have the specific content knowledge that would allow for an accurate understanding of what the data means.

The article got me thinking about what we might be able to do to make our politicians more science-savvy. Maybe it’s more important to teach politicians about how scientific data is generated, gathered and interpreted than it is to teach them the nitty-gritty details of molecular biology or nuclear physics (although it would be great if somebody could teach Bush that “nuclear” is not supposed to be pronounced “nucular”).

Obviously scientists and doctors are in a good position to do this kind of work. But I also think that science journalists, who also understand more than a little bit about how science works because they cover it for a living, are also in an excellent position to help politicians learn more about the scientific enterprise and what science can—and cannot—tell us, simply through accurate reporting and writing on science.

On Wednesday, December 6th, the New York Times, along with other media outlets, reported on the New York City Board of Health’s decision to ban trans fats in NYC restaurants (see article).

I’m sure it was just a coincidence that the news reports appeared just two days after the press broke the story of Pfizer’s decision to discontinue the company’s development of it’s cholesterol drug torcetrapib because too many people were dying in a clinical trial of the agent(see article).

But the timing of the two news stories couldn’t have been more perfect!

The drug from Pfizer raises levels of the good kind of cholesterol, and trans fat has the dubious distinction of lowering such levels (in addition to raising levels of the bad kind of cholesterol). So a drug that would help battle the menace of trans fat fails, and then NYC steps in with a restaurant ban to make sure the battle lives on. The city of Cambridge is now thinking about an anti-trans fat measure of its own (see article).

For anyone tired of hearing about trans fat, this past week was not a good one; it’s hard to go through just one day without being scared-to-death by articles about the trans fat specter. Nevertheless, both stories from this past week raise really interesting issues. Three of the more compelling ones:

1. How bad is trans fat in actuality? A NYT article in August of 2005 by Gina Kolata (see article)
says that, according to most scientists, trans fat is about as bad for you as saturated fat, but since people eat far more saturated fat than trans fat, maybe we’re too worried about the latter, and are not keeping our eye closely enough on the former.

2. How far should city public health departments go in protecting the public health? Many places have banned smoking in bars/restaurants; is the ban on trans fat any different? Or is the city of New York trying to legislate lifestyle choices? NYC also approved a measure that would force some restaurants to inform customers of the caloric content of each of their offerings. Would this have been enough? Also, is the scientific understanding of the health consequences of trans fat firm enough to make a trans fat ban desirable?

3. What does all of this say about drug development by pharmaceutical companies? I just started reading a book on this topic by Marcia Angell, the former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. In The Truth About Drug Companies, she argues that big pharma companies spend far more on marketing and advertising their drugs than they do on developing them, and that they actually introduce very few new, innovative drugs. I feel really bad for patients who would have benefited from torcetrapib, and hopefully other companies will develop their own drugs that will raise good cholesterol. I’m not so concerned about Pfizer’s finances, though, and the nosedive its stock has taken, because the profits still keep rolling in.