RABI’UL-THANI 17, 1429 A.H
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23 2008
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Checking false claims to scientific discoveries
By Alex Abutu
For Nigerians living with the HIV/AIDS virus nothing could have been more soothing than the news, in 2000, of a scientific breakthrough that suggested an eventual cure for the pandemic.
With thousands dying daily, the claim by Dr Jeremiah Abalaka, an Abuja-based medical doctor, was seen as a ray of hope for the already hopeless and hapless victims.
But that hope was not to last as the authorities rejected the said discovery when Abalaka refused to submit his claims for scientific verification.
The team from the federal ministry of health that sought to investigate Abalaka's claims concluded that his discovery was premised on ''other means rather than scientifically acceptable methods''.
But hardly had the euphoria on Abalaka's claim died out than another Nigerian scientist came up with yet another claim to a similar discovery.
This time, it was Dr Jacob Abdullahi, an Abuja-based laboratory technologist who also claimed to have discovered another cure for the HIV/AIDS infection.
Before peers, scientific societies and the general public could come to terms with the purported claim, a lot of people infected with the virus had surrendered themselves to be used as guinea pigs to prove the efficacy of Abdullahi's drug.
As it was in the case of Abalaka, Abdullahi outrightly rejected attempts by experts and federal government officials to authenticate and subject his claims to internationally acceptable standards.
An angry Abdullahi alleged that he was being persecuted by jealous colleagues.
At a point, he said his ``stunning discoveries'' were only being ``rejected and ridiculed'' because of his religious convictions and the minority status of his Igala nationality.
Owing to the freedom enjoyed by Nigerian scientists claiming to have the cure for all kinds of ailments, scientists from other countries with stringent laws where such practices would have been rejected as unethical, have found a haven in Nigeria.
Such people have continued to exploit the gullible members of the public.
One of them is Prof. Anumag Ngu, a Cameroonian, who submitted a proposal on HIV/AIDS cure to the federal government in 2004.
Stakeholders, who felt that the claim had some merit, prevailed on the federal government to constitute an inter-ministerial committee to verify the claim.
Incidentally, Ngu is being accorded a special treatment in Nigeria even as his claim was outrightly rejected in his native Cameroon.
Experts, who faulted the attention given to the Cameroonian, appear poised for the last laugh as the committee is yet to submit its report, some four years after.
A member of the committee who pleaded anonymity recently told journalists that there was no substance to the claim.
``We have tried our best, but there does not appear to be any thing serious in the claim,'' the member stated.
Another celebrated case was Dr Ezekiel Izuogu's well-publicised claim to achieving a breakthrough in ''Emagnetodynamics'' in 2007.
Izuogu, who announced his discovery at a news conference, declared that his finding had proved the age-long Physics law of energy conservation wrong.
At that briefing, he called on the federal government to patronise his discovery as it was capable of solving Nigeria's energy crisis.
Izuogu said that the discovery had disproved the law of conservation of energy with the invention of a self-sustaining ``New Machine''.
The law of conservation of energy, a very crucial law of Physics and Engineering, stipulates that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
Izuogu said that the New Machine would be drawing its energy from permanent magnets to function.
``This will prove the all important law of conservation wrong,'' he claimed.
He explained that the invention built on the principles of ``Emagnetodynamics'' was premised on the foundation that ``permanent magnets may contain intrinsic atomic energy which can be tapped for man's use.''
While scientists continue to verify Izuogu's claims, analysts have faulted the idea of first announcing scientific discoveries to the media.
They say that there are acceptable procedures which discoveries, inventions and innovations must pass through to gain societal recognition.
One example, they often cited, is Edward Jenner's discovery of the cure for Small Pox in 1840.
The discovery, which was published in a journal, was subjected to debates, public criticisms and reviews until all the doubts were cleared.
Another scientist, Robert Koch, discovered the bacterium that causes anthrax in 1876, and subjected the finding to peer analysis both in Berlin and Egypt.
But the situation is different in Nigeria as criticisms by peers and calls for analysis by the public are viewed as deliberate attempts to run down the personality of the scientist.
Worldwide, scientific claims are first published in journals, giving opportunities to other scientists to take serious look at the claim and subject such to test.
The publication also gives the claimant the opportunity of having his works assessed and criticised by his peers to enable him make amends where necessary.
An interesting dimension is the fact that peer-reviews are not limited to the area where the claimant is based.
They are read globally and the contents subjected to global criticism, assessment and improvement.
In 1862, for instance, a French scientist, Alexandre Beguyer de Chancourtois, developed a way of representing elements by wrapping a helical list around a cylinder.
The finding was published in a journal, resulting in analysis and criticisms that set the pace for what today is known as the Periodic Table.
Chancourtois' work was to wait until 1869 when a Serbian scientist, Dmitri Mendeleev, came up with the Periodic Table, having analysed the earlier works undertaken by Chancourtois courtesy of its publication in a journal.
For this discovery, Mendeleev was awarded the Nobel prize in 1890.
Some observers blame the growing number of false claimants to medical and scientific discoveries in the country to the fact that there is no officially designated institution charged with the responsibility to verify and check claims by scientists.
They say that the situation can be sanitised if there is an independent commission or organisation saddled with the responsibility of verifying such findings.
The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), and the Nigerian Academy of Science (NAS), appear not to have shown much interests on what is happening.
But while the debate rages on the ways to minimise scientific fraud, pundits say that thousands of people die daily for subscribing to uncertified drugs produced by fraudulent claimants.
Analysts have, therefore, called on the government and research institutions to explain why such persons who seek after fame and wealth should be allowed to freely administer drugs that have not been scientifically verified.
They say that the only way to demonstrate their disapproval of the claimants' activities will be to institute legal proceedings against such persons.
That way, they reason, fake claimants will be forced to leave the scene and serve as deterrent to others like them. (NAN).
