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Scientists to probe ethics
complaint over “hand-walkers” research
March 15,
2006
By Jack Lucentini
World Science
Turkey’s chief organization of scientists has announced plans to investigate
an ethical complaint against three U.K. researchers over a study of people who walk on all fours in Turkey.
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The "hand-walkers," which some
researchers have hailed as an unprecedented insight into the evolution of
upright walking. One scientist has termed it a case of backward evolution.
A documentary on them will appear at 9 p.m. U.K. time on BBC 2. It will
not be aired in the United States until a later date, according to the
BBC. (Image courtesy BBC)
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The British scientists today broke a long silence on the issue to answer the complaints, saying they had done nothing wrong.
The comments came a day after a top U.K. expert in scientific ethics suggested
a university where they work should investigate their research.
The complaints originated with a Turkish scientist who said that after he invited the
U.K. researchers to study the phenomenon with him, they arranged a deal that
forced him to stop his own study of it. They deny it.
The case has some Turkish scientists bristling with offended national pride.
“This is scandalous. This is something like an insult,” said Tayfun Ozcelik, president of the Turkish Society of Medical Genetics. He said the British team seems to have done its research without the proper approvals either in Turkey or the U.K., but the British researchers said they obtained
approval.
The affair began last year, after researchers discovered a family in a Turkish village, five of whose members walk habitually on all fours even as adults. These hand-walkers, as some called them, were hailed as a phenomenon that could shed light on the evolution of upright walking.
Soon after the finding, a Turkish researcher, Uner Tan of Cukurova University Medical School in Adana, Turkey, invited some U.K. scientists to study it alongside him. As a result, three prominent
researchers joined him: Nicholas Humphrey and John R. Skoyles of the London School of Economics, and Roger Keynes of the University of Cambridge.
Relations between them and Tan later soured.
Eventually, Tan claims, they “stole” his credit for discovering the syndrome, and sold the story for a BBC documentary to appear this Friday. Worst, he
says, they paid the hand-walkers’ family to stop cooperating with him and
other researchers.
He said this payment consisted of 1,000 euros (about $1,200 U.S.), plus newly installed water and electrical service. The family was poor.
The U.K. researchers, asked about these claims by a reporter last month, at first answered only some of them. Humphrey said he hadn’t usurped any credit, and that the syndrome’s real discoverer seems to have been not Tan but another researcher, Osman Demirhan.
Humphrey then refused to discuss the alleged payment and other issues. He instead
expressed irritation at the questions, writing in an email: “No one wants to talk to a journalist whose primary interest seems to be in making trouble.”
Today, as scientists and others increasingly raised questions, Humphrey sent an email responding to the other key allegations.
He said he had paid the family 500 euros, at Tan’s suggestion, “with no conditions attached.” Tan acknowledged he had given the family “a little money” and urged Humphrey to do the same, but said he didn’t expect to be excluded as
a result.
Humphrey added that he didn’t know about the water and electric service, but he thought a local benefactor may have helped the family build a well.
Some experts in scientific ethics said they worried the U.K. team might not have
undertaken the normal process of having their research project pre-approved by one of the
ethics panels that universities set up for the purpose.
A day before Humphrey’s new comments, one expert said the silence on
whether ethical review took place was leading him to think Humphrey’s institution should investigate
the research.
“I would draw the conclusion they probably did not have ethics approval,” said Søren Holm of Cardiff University, U.K., joint editor-in-chief of the London-based
Journal of Medical Ethics. “I think it would be both rational and right for the university to look into the project,” he added, referring to the London
School.
But in his new comments, Humphrey said he had the necessary approval, from Tan’s own university. “In this kind of international collaboration, it is generally accepted that approval by the host institution (i.e. Cukorova University) will cover visiting scientists,” Humphrey
wrote. He later added: “I’m not prepared to answer further questions.”
Tan said he didn’t believe Humphrey has valid approval, though Humphrey said he has it in
writing and also got consent from the hand-walkers’ father.
Richard Ashcroft, head of medical ethics at Imperial College London, said he thinks Humphrey technically didn’t need approval, because his research wasn’t strictly
medical. The approval would have been a good idea anyway, he added.
Holm said he also has some other ethical questions about the research.
BBC spokeswoman Nicola Richardson also weighed in on the controversy, repeating that no researchers were excluded from studying the family. She said Tan appears in the documentary and
receives due credit.
BBC promotional material for the film touts “exclusive access to the family,” but Richardson said this exclusivity
refers to television crews, not scientists.
Tan said he has raised some of his complaints in an unanswered letter to a London School official. He has also lately taken up the issue with the Turkish Academy, of which he is a member, saying he hopes the academy can write its own letter.
The academy’s president, Engin Bermek, said the group has set up a committee to look into the matter, which will meet Friday. “We will let them investigate this issue and then provide us with a report,” he said, which the academy will evaluate.
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