That makes it sound like the driving force was ego and insider/outsider status as much as it was the scientific process That makes it sound like the driving force was ego and insider/outsider status as much as it was the scientific process
Well, and money. I think there was a strategy in the pharmaceutical industry to keep the new bacteria theory of ulcers under wraps. At the time we made the discovery, a new antacid was coming out every year or two that was stronger or better in some way, and as each drug was rolled out, the pharmaceutical companies funded scientists to do clinical studies on people with ulcers.
If these had been truly scientific people who were genuinely interested in discovery, as soon as they heard about the new bacteria [theory], they would've said to the investigator, "We're testing 300 patients with ulcers; can you just take an extra biopsy and check for bacteria? We want to know what's going on here." But they didn't do that, because the only purpose of these trials was to get a new indication and extended registration for the FDA. If you look at it from a business point of view, it could only do your market harm and lower your share price to find out that you could actually cure people with antibiotics. And that was their point of view.
Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. It's easy to characterize your story as the triumph of an evidence-driven outsider over a bunch of insiders and their vested interests, but isn't what happened actually a pretty good example of how science is supposed to work?
As you said a moment ago, the scientific process involves trying to prove other people wrong, and in that sense, the fact that you were subjected to a lot of intense questioning and skepticism and so forth seems appropriate.
Right, sure, that's part of it. In retrospect, I was partly to blame, because I would get data that was rather preliminary and try to publish it because it was exciting and novel and original, even though we didn't yet have any kind of double-blind studies.
But also, we felt it was important to act. Maybe it would have been different if we'd been talking about [a cure for] a skin rash or something; maybe you can afford to wait five years until that's proved. But people died from ulcers all over the place and were having their stomachs or half their stomachs removed; there were permanent, mutilating operations and deaths going on around us. And yet to test our idea, you just needed to take some antibiotics. So we weren't very ashamed about trying to get our message out, even though it was rather preliminary.
Posts: 845 | From Eastern USA | Registered: Jul 2006
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Carol in PA
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 5338
posted
Good interview.
I like this part:
quote:People had been seriously studying ulcers for 50 years, billions of dollars were spent, and then—what do you know, it's a bacteria. So you have to ask, what other infectious diseases are we missing?
I reckon a lot of these mysterious chronic diseases are related to some infectious agent that's been a trigger.
.
quote: David Graham said, "The great thing about Marshall's theory is that if he's wrong, it's going to be so easy to disprove."
The point he was making was that if it's a good hypothesis, you can test it. And ours was very testable; you just had to give people antibiotics and see if they got better. And they did.
So everybody who was trying to prove us wrong, if they were good scientists, they just changed sides.
Hah!
Carol
Posts: 6947 | From Lancaster, PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
we need Barry Marshall to study Lyme! maybe this is the person we need on our side!
Posts: 606 | From somewhere out there | Registered: Sep 2009
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posted
He has been approached and isn't interested. One breakthrough is about all you can expect from a person who had so much opposition.
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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