hopes, to issue the final PEIS by June 1993, and its final reconfiguration strategy by that fall. The 212-page OTA report notes there is extensive contamination of soil, sediments, surface water, and groundwater throughout the complex. DOE's five-year plan in 1990 called for spending more than $30 billion on cleanup in fiscal 1992 to 1996. But, OTA notes, u l t i m a t e cleanup costs could be hundreds of billions of dollars. OTA finds that cleanup efforts are hampered by lack of ready technical solutions, reliable data, and qualified personnel and infrastructure; by inadequate efforts to assess possible health impacts on people living off site; and by "public distrust" of DOE. Most of the waste is destined to remain at the sites for decades to come, it note;s, and the goal of clean-
up at all sites within 30 years is "unfounded." The report adds that the prospects for effective cleanup are " p o o r " without major policy changes. It therefore suggests that Congress consider increasing oversight of cleanup activities and federal agencies involved, strengthening agency personnel, and setting up an office in an agency outside DOE to assess potential health impacts from weapons facilities. It also suggests that Congress could establish an independent national commission—or authorize an existing agency outside DOE—to oversee radioactive waste management activities, and could set up advisory boards with fulltime technical staff at each site to p r o v i d e public participation in cleanup decisions. Richard Seltzer
Monsanto told to stop promoting bovine hormone The Food & Drug Administration has ordered Monsanto to stop promoting genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (BGH) while the drug is still under review. However, Walter P. Hobgood, Monsanto's director of animal nutrition and health, says, "We believe that we have always complied w i t h the guidelines FDA has, and we willcontinue to do that." Monsanto's activities have been informational, not promotional, he asserts. Monsanto, American Cyanamid, Eli Lilly & Co., and Upjohn have each spent millions of dollars to develop their own versions of BGH, also called bovine somatotropin, which increases milk production in cows. FDA has approved the sale of meat and milk from cows treated with BGH in research trials. But the agency is still reviewing the hormone's health effects and efficacy in cows and has not cleared BGH for general marketing. In a Jan. 9 letter to Monsanto, Gerald B. Guest, director of FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, states that Monsanto has developed a large number of items, including brochures and videotapes and sponsored meetings, "which in part promote" BGH as being safe and/or effective. Guest also asked Monsanto
to stop making promotional statements about porcine growth hormone, which was developed to produce leaner pork and is also under review by FDA. Federal regulations forbid companies from promoting products that are under review. Guest conceded that BGH development has been highly unusual in that "it has been subjected to public debate for more than five years," and that consequently Monsanto has felt a need to educate the public about the hormone. However, many of Monsanto's statements went beyond the legitimate exchange of scientific information, Guest wrote. According to Hobgood, the reprimand likely is a direct outgrowth of an investigation of FDA's review process for BGH, which is being carried out by the Inspector General of the Department of Health & Human Services. Last year Rep. John D. Conyers Jr. (D.-Mich.), chairman of the Government Operations Committee, requested this investigation. As a result of the investigation, Inspector General Richard P. Kusserow sent a draft report in December to James O. Mason, assistant secretary of health, alerting him to Monsanto's "possible violation of federal regulations pertaining to the preapproval promotion" of BGH. Kusse-
row also discussed Monsanto's alleged promotional activities with FDA officials, who promised to take any necessary regulatory action. Kusserow's office is preparing a second report on alleged collusion between FDA and Monsanto to hide scientific data on BGH. The report is scheduled to be completed in four to six weeks. At a meeting with FDA about two w e e k s ago, M o n s a n t o officials stressed their need to counteract misinformation put out by opponents of BGH. "The question here is one of fundamental fairness. Those who criticize BGH are opposed to technology and biotechnology. We believe the public has a right to hear both sides of the story," Hobgood says. American Cyanamid, Eli Lilly, and Upjohn have not yet received letters from FDA asking them to stop promoting BGH. FDA spokeswoman Bonnie Aikman refuses to say whether they will eventually receive such letters. Monsanto was singled out because it has been the most vocal on the issue, Hobgood explains. Bette Hileman
U.S. seen losing lead in biomedical research According to a new Gallup poll, most academic and industrial research leaders and National Institutes of Health grantees interviewed believe that U.S. leadership in biomedical research is slipping, that funding is less available than it was five years ago, and that the "pipeline" of students entering the field is beginning to dry up. The poll, conducted for the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association Foundation, is being used to support a public information campaign launched by PMAF last week and aimed at encouraging remedial action. The survey polled 202 academics (primarily deans and department chairmen), 104 current NIH grant holders, and 107 leaders of pharmaceutical R&D (such as section heads and company presidents). Most respondents believe the U.S. could soon lose its leadership position in February 18, 1991 C&EN 5
News of the Week biomedical research—probably to Japan—and that the availability of research grants in the field has de clined in the past five years. In addi tion, a majority believes the number of students going into biomedical research is declining and that this trend will continue. At a PMAF press conference last week in Washington, D.C., several national research leaders character ized the problem as complex and rooted in multiple factors. These in clude a shrinking college-age popu lation; reduced math and science skills of secondary school graduates; and the need for established investi gators to spend more time seeking funds and less time on research. Oth er problems include young investiga tors abandoning research for better paying jobs; "graying" of the scientif-
ic community, resulting in attrition of senior scientists; and minimal in creases in the proportions of females and minorities entering research. "One might ask, if the competi tion now is such that there are five applicants for each [NIH] project grant award, why worry about the supply of research manpower?" said William F. Raub, acting NIH direc tor. Such views are "shortsighted," explains Raub, in light of the de mands created by new research ar eas and demographic factors. "We've all dropped the ball," adds Donald N. Langenberg, chancellor of the University of Maryland. "How long will it take to rectify it? ... If we start now doing what we should have been doing, it's going to take us a decade or two to fix the problem." Stu Borman
Supersandwich may advance superconductor field Researchers at Stanford University have used a high-temperature super conductor to grow, for the first time, a many-layered, thin-film sandwich in which the optimum current path is at right angles to the film surface. This new orientation for a superlat tice structure is expected to make it possible to construct sandwich-type tunnel junctions, basic devices useful in the study of superconductivity and in its technological application. "We feel we've taken the first big step in that direction," says team leader Theodore H. Geballe of the department of applied physics. The new superlattice consists of alternating layers of the supercon ductor yttrium-barium-copper oxide (YBa2Cu307) and its praseodymium analog, PrBa2Cu307, which is an in sulator. Each layer is 12-A thick. Structures with 400 such layers have been prepared as thin films with ex tremely smooth surfaces, Geballe's team reported last week in Science [251, 780 (1991)]. At least half a dozen groups previ ously have grown superconductor/ insulator superlattices by stacking one material on top of another, the way one would make a salami sand wich. In such a c-axis-oriented struc ture, the copper-oxygen (Cu0 2 ) planes, along which the current flows, are parallel to the film sur6
February 18, 1991 C&EN
face. This means that the supercurrent flows along the film/from one edge to the other. But to incorporate superconductor films into integrated circuits, scien tists would like the current to flow from one face of the film to the oth er, so that electrical connections can be made to the surfaces, rather than
Idealized superlattice caxis
.52 V (Ο
24 A
) Praseodymium Copper
Yttrium
Barium
Oxygen
Diagram of the unit cell of an ideal aaxis-oriented superlattice consisting of alternating 12-A-thick layers of su perconducting yttrium-barium-copper oxide and insulating praseodymiumbarium-copper oxide. Copper-oxygen planes along oaxis are vertical here.
the edges, of the film. For this to happen, the current-carrying Cu0 2 planes need to be oriented perpen dicular to the surface (in the a-direction). This is the orientation of the Stanford superlattice. This superlattice was constructed the way one might create an elabo rate dessert from two varieties of Neapolitan ice cream: By alternately stacking slices of chocolate-vanillastrawberry and chocolate-coffeestrawberry, one ends up with alter nating chunks of vanilla and coffee (that is, yttrium and praseodymium) sandwiched between monolithic blocks of chocolate and strawberry (barium and copper). The end result is that each Cu0 2 plane consists of alternating super conducting and insulating strips, de pending on whether the neighbor ing rare-earth atoms are yttrium or praseodymium. Many groups are now pursuing such fl-axis-oriented structures be cause supercurrents in these copper oxides are much more pronounced in the a-direction than in the c-direction. Geballe thinks fl-axis-oriented films probably will make it easier to construct sandwich-type tunnel junctions, which haven't yet been made from any of the cuprate super conductors. Such tunnel junctions could be used to gain a better under standing of the physics of supercon ductivity, and to obtain well-be haved Josephson junctions for elec tronic applications. Geballe's group is working toward that goal. Stanford graduate student ChangBeom Eom prepared the superlattice by alternately depositing YBa2Cu307 and PrBa2Cu307 on a substrate using a sputtering process. Normally, c-axis-oriented material is produced in this system. But conditions can be chosen to favor growth in the a-direction. Scientists at Bell Communications Research in Red Bank, N.J., also have been growing multilayer cu prate structures oriented in the fl-direction, although theirs are not su perlattices. The Bellcore team is us ing laser deposition to make threelayer sandwiches. The eventual goal is to pattern these into Josephson junction-type devices,, notes Bell core's Charles T. Rogers. Ron Dagani
