A new exhibit on the history of leeching lined the hallway leading to the Biomed library-medieval etchings and wax simulations of patients being feasted upon by rubbery parasites. The main reading room was open for another two hours. One librarian, a good-looking blond woman, sat at the reference desk.
I searched through a decade of the Index Medicus for articles by Ashmore and Herbert and came up with four by him, all published during the last ten years.
The earliest appeared in the World Health Organization's public-health bulletin-Ashmore's summary of his work on infectious diseases in the southern Sudan, emphasizing the difficulty of conducting research in a war-torn environment. His writing style was cool, but the anger leaked through.
The other three pieces had been published in biomathematics journals.
The first, funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, was Ashmore's take on the Love Canal disaster. The second was a federally funded review of mathematical applications to the life sciences. Ashmore's final sentence: 'There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.'
The last report was the work Mrs. Ashmore had described: analyzing the relationship between soil- concentration of pesticides and rates of leukemia, brain tumors, and lymphatic and liver cancers in children.
The results were less than dramatic-a small numerical link between chemicals and disease, but one that wasn't statistically significant.
But Ashmore said if even one life was saved, the study had justified itself.
A little strident and self-serving for scientific writing. I checked the funding on the study: The Ferris Dixon Institute for Chemical Research, Norfolk, Virginia. Grant #37958.
It sounded like an industry front, though Ashmore's point of view wouldn't have made him a likely candidate for the chemical industry's largesse. I wondered if the absence of any more publications meant the institute had cut off his grant money.
If so, who paid his bills at Western Peds?
I went over to the librarian and asked her if there was a compilation of scientific grants issued by private agencies.
'Sure,' she said. 'Life science or physical?'
Not sure how Ashmore's work would be categorized, I said, 'Both.'
She got up and walked briskly back to the reference shelves.
Heading straight for a case in the center of the section, she pulled down two thick soft-cover books.
'Here you go these are the most recent. Anything prior to this year is bound, over there. If you want federally funded research, that's over there to the right.'
I thanked her, took the books to a table, and read their covers.
CATALOGUE OF PRIVATELY FUNDED RESEARCH: VOLUME I: THE BIOMEDICAL AND LIFE SCIENCES.
Ditto, VOLUME II: ENGINEERING, MATHEMATICS, AND THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES.
I opened the first one and turned to the 'Grantee' section at the back.
Laurence Ashmore's name popped out at me midway through the As, cross-referenced to a page number in the 'Grantor' section. I flipped to it: THE FERRIS DIXON INSTITUTE FOR CHEMICAL REsEARCH NORFOLK, VIRGINIA The institute had funded only two projects for the current academic year: #~~959: Ashmote, Laurence Allan. Western Pediatric
Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA. Soil toxicity as a factor in the etioligy of pediatric neoplasms.o a fol'owup study. 's973' 6~ 2.75, three years.
#3~9co: Zimberg, Walter William. University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD. Nonparametric statistics versus Pearson correlations in scient'fcprediction. the investigative, heuristic, andpredic'I've value of a priori aeter'nination ofsainple distribution. 's 124,731.00, three years.
The second study was quite a mouthful, but Ferris Dixon obviously wasn't paying by the word. Ashmore had received nearly 90 percent of its total funding.
Nearly a million dollars for three years.
