Word: mgh
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...team of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) scientists were forced to admit, after a trial of their AIDS therapy was already underway, that their "wonder-drug" had only been effective against a badly crippled form of HIV, a virus which causes AIDS. Thousands of phone calls from AIDS victims flooded the MGH switchboard, as patients sought places in any upcoming trials. Sadly, outside of a few newspaper articles, only a bare whimper the media fanfare which sounded the original February announcement of the "successful" therapy survived for the news of the defeat...
...science, slight missteps such as these are sometimes too much. We all wanted the MGH "triple therapy" to work and rid humanity of AIDS. We all wanted Reggie Lewis to be healthy and play basketball again. And we all wanted a clear picture of homosexual development, regardless of our views on the issue. All these conclusions, were they completely valid, would have allowed us to sleep easier, or at least believe that humanity could control...
...scientists, too, can be guilty of the same sort of "willing suspension." Regardless of fault, the MGH team either chose to reject evidence, namely a set of mutations, which would suggest they were working on a crippled virus. Mudge felt that the information he had at his disposal was clear enough to reject other physicians' diagnoses...
...would seek shelter behind the chromosome to explain their own insecurities. Rather, it provides a model for scientists who would--and should--seek to avoid the spectacle of half-page color pictures of Gilbert Mudge in the Boston Globe and banner headlines in the New York Post about MGH AIDS researcher Yung-Kang Chow, a "make-good" Asian immigrant...
...MGH team should have been more careful, in any case, but the knowledge that the hopes of so many rested on their findings should have prompted more caution. Mudge might have sought more consultation with other physicians, rather than amobbed press conference before TV cameras. Certainly, the media is not blameless...