The Baltimore affair: a different view.

You’ve heard it all before, perhaps: the epic story of an uncooperative lab director with communication problems; a disenfranchised and disillusioned whistleblower with a mission, a world-renowned but obstinate scientist; a powerful congressman with a mandate to ensure that the taxpayer’s money is used responsibly; a duo of unofficial but intellectually well-armed and ethically uncompromising investigators; confused university officials torn between concerns about fairness on one hand and possible damage to their institution’s reputation on the other; government officials more preoccupied with in-fighting and advancing their own careers than with their investigative duties; aggressive and unscrupulous Washington lawyers; friends, enemies, colleagues, emotions, loyalties, moral obligations and self-interest. In short, this was a very human story about people who were expected to behave in a superhuman way under exceptional circumstances. All were convinced that their motives were honorable; all were under pressure to protect their own reputations in the eyes of different peer communities and constituencies; and all made serious mistakes. Of the thousands of lines that have been written about the Baltimore affair (also known as the Imanishi-Kari affair), two books that attempt to trace the full story and place the events into perspective are worth reading for those who require a more cool-headed view than what was provided from contemporaneous journal, newspaper and television coverage of the controversy. One book has been reviewed in prominent journals [7, 10, 11]; the other has received much less attention. The origin, development and outcome of the Baltimore case are documented in detail in both books, which are written for the educated general public. Daniel J. Kevles, a historian of science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), has produced a book (Fig. 1) that has been cited as the definitive study, and as conclusive evidence of the dangers of government interference in the ethical oversight of the research process [3]. His seventeen-chapter study is accompanied by a glossary of technical terms and of source abbreviations, copious endnotes, and an assay on sources. He goes into great detail on the errors made by the Office of Science Integrity (OSI) (now the Office of Research Integrity, ORI) and the Secret Service in their analyses of the evidence against Imanishi-Kari, and attacks John Dingell and his staff for being overly concerned—for their own political motives—with teaching arrogant scientists that they are obliged to use public money with utmost responsibility. Karen Shashok