Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1986. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - October 24, 1986
Philip M. Boffey
The investigation was prompted by Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr., Republican of Connecticut, who heads the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that passes on funds for the centers.
The Senator had become concerned about allegations quoted in the press that disgruntled workers were sabotaging experiments, that a research paper had been suppressed and that unhappy scientists were leaving the research program on acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS.
"There were a lot of allegations being made by a lot of people," Senator Weicker said in a statement issued by his staff. "So I turned to a professional, nonpolitical entity to determine whether the allegations were correct or not correct."
Need for Independent Review
Although the Centers for Disease Control has conducted its own internal investigation and discounted most of the allegations, both Senator Weicker and Dr. James Mason, director of centters, agreed that a more independent review was needed.
The panel of three investigators was appointed by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a prestigious private group that conducts studies for government agencies.
The members include Dr. Julius Krevans, chancellor of the University of California medical school in San Francisco; Dr. Robert Berliner, professor of physiology and former dean of the Yale medical school; and Dr. Bernadine Healey, director of research at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Kathryn Lord, a spokesman for centers, said that the Institute of Medicine panel "will look at the total management and productivity of the AIDS program lab," including the specific allegations that research had been sabotaged and findings suppressed, and broader issues of management as well.
"Although our own investigation did not reveal problems," she said, "we thought that an independent evaluation was important to ensure public trust."
The centers's previous investigation found a few incidents where experiments might have been tampered with but no firm evidence that such tampering had occurred or that it was sabotage, she said. None of these incidents occurred in the AIDS program laboratory, she added.
The investigating panel is expected to complete its work this weekend and then submit a report to Dr. Mason that will subsequently be made public, she said.
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