Attacked, but not disproven
If B-movies have taught us anything, it’s that scientists are easily ignored until they get that wild-eyed rule-breaking behaviour going. Remember when Ming the Merciless was cinematically strafing the planet with hot hail in 1980? And everybody just thought it was weird weather? Only when Dr Hans Zarkov pulled a gun on Flash Gordon and forced him into his spaceship was the problem heroically confronted.
This was a point the news media put to real-life Nasa scientist Jim Hansen when he toured New Zealand in 2011. He was the man who snapped Al Gore, but not enough others, to attention on the dangers of climate change. ‘‘Scientists,’’ the mildmannered Hansen acknowledged, ‘‘are not the best people for communicating.’’
Pulling out weaponry in defence of research is probably not to be encouraged. But it remains a torment for scientists that their messages can languish unheeded because of the counter-tactics of those for whom the findings are unwelcome.
Which would appear to be the unedifying dynamic uncovered in the case of independent researchers from Otago University, who three years ago found evidence to suggest babies in midwife-led care were at risk of poorer outcomes than babies in doctor-led care. This finding was met by an alignment of the College of Midwives and senior health officials to try to discredit it.
The researchers were not saying a midwiferyled system was a bad idea. They supported it. But they found issues with its organisation.
A Stuff investigation has found that, once armed with an advance copy provided by authors Diana Sarfati and Ellie Wernham, some ministry staffers worked on how to avoid ‘‘fallout’’ and shared plans with the midwives’ body to discredit the report and to spin the results to take the spotlight away from the safety of the system.
The message taken back to senior university figures was that the ministry felt the study was flawed. The academics stood their ground and the findings did hit the headlines, albeit to heavy criticism from the ministry and midwives.
This could be accepted as people of good intent disagreeing. But the ministry drafted a misleading media release including the inaccuracy that the study had found no differences in the death rate for babies who had midwife-led or doctor-led care. Good research is always infused with an explicit acknowledgement of its limitations, and that was the case here. It should also be acknowledged that two University of Auckland academics published perceived defects in the Otago study.
Nevertheless, the findings cried out for further research. This is the way things are meant to work. Tellingly, the ministry took the soothing line that the study would indeed be followed up.
It wasn’t. That is deeply concerning.
The researchers were left feeling beaten up by the experience, and it’s perhaps unsurprising that they weren’t sufficiently prepared for further combat. But there was clearly real disquiet – if that’s not too mild a word – at Otago University.
The concern remains that the research was euthanised; explained away rather than disproven in a professional way. On an issue as important as this, that surely was necessary. This was a case that needed, if not a Zarkov, then at least a champion of some sort. For too long, it has lacked one.
It remains a torment for scientists that their messages can languish unheeded because of the counter-tactics of those for whom the findings are unwelcome.