Most applications for research grants declined

Press, 25 July 1989, Page 39

Most applications for research grants declined

PA Auckland Nearly three-quarters of the research projects submitted to the Medical Research Council for grants this year have been declined.

Of 69 studies submitted in February, only 19 (or 28 per cent) have received grants. The council’s senior administrative officer, Ms Rosemary Downard, said a further 16 were approved and would have received money if it was available. The number of scientifically approved projects able to be funded has dropped from 80 per cent in 1986 to 54 per cent this year.

Ms Downard said the council’s $14.5 million budget has not grown in real terms since the mid--1970s while the number of applications has increased. For the same period in 1986, only 47 proposals were considered.

Among these rejected was a pioneering study by an Auckland Medical School child health researcher, Professor Bob

Elliott, who said his work on diabetes could eradicate the disease.

He wanted to test 22,000 school children for antibodies which he believed will predict whether they will develop diabetes, and then treat those who test positively. Professor Elliott’s study was approved by one council assessing committee and rejected by another.

He said the rejection was a post-Cartwright backlash, and medical funding bodies were frightened to authorise any research involving more than a questionnaire.

Associate Professor Rae West, chairman of the social medicine assessing committee which supported his application, said there was no doubt "ethical aspects” had tightened because of the Cartwright cervical can-

cer inquiry. This applied to all com-munity-based projects, as opposed to laboratory work, and Professor Elliott’s study would not have been adversely affected. Ms Downard said the study was declined on scientific grounds.

The council’s review summary said one assessing committee believed the potential existed for the study to make a valuable contribution to the prevention of diabetes.

Several independent assessors were jittery about the effectiveness of the drug that Professor Elliott proposed using — Vitamin B 4 — and were worried about false positive tests. Others emphasised the treatment would be given to ostensibly healthy children with no other sign of the disease, rather than to high-risk people, she said.