Word: hixson
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...JOSEPH HIXSON...
Given the medical implications, it was certain someone would write a book about the Sloan-Kettering scandal. What was not inevitable was a book as well wrought as The Patchwork Mouse. Hixson, a former newspaper reporter and public information officer at S.K.I., has gone beyond the emotionalism of the Summerlin affair to take a hard look at the promises and problems of big-league research. The result is a cautionary tale that no scientist-or layman-can afford to ignore...
Lopsided Philanthropy. Hixson draws an understanding portrait of Summerlin, a charming, disorganized South Carolinian who could never get his lab in order or his correspondence answered. He paints a somewhat more ambiguous picture of Good, a zealot who starts his working days in the predawn hours when most of his colleagues are asleep. Hixson recognizes that Good, who combines unbridled enthusiasm with a flair for publicity, may have contributed to a feeling by Summerlin that he would be letting S.K.I, down if his experiments flopped...
...tends to go to experimenters with positive track records. As The Patchwork Mouse illustrates, such lopsided philanthropy leads not only to personal tragedy but scandalous science. The dangers of a system fueled by anxiety and dependent on immediate success cannot be exaggerated. The Summerlin affair was only the handwriting; Hixson is worried about the wall itself...