What it means to be a scientist: male

The Science Advisory Board, an international network of science and medical experts, has just published the results of a study on global science that sheds some interesting light on what it means to be a woman in science--particularly in the light of the #distractinglysexy debate. 

With the caveat that that I have not dived deeply into the survey methodology, SAB report that female scientists in their survey are more likely to be dissatisfied with salary/benefits, job availability, gender barriers, and how they feel valued as scientists than their male colleagues. The study was part of a Global Science survey that sought feedback from people about why they became scientists and what it is like to be a scientific professional. 

 “We originally set out to look at what it means to be a scientist,” said Quentin Kreilmann, Science Advisory Board Community Manager. “We found two narratives depending on gender, one of which comes with additional challenges.” The Global Science 2015 survey sample includes 1,478 respondents, 58% men and 42% women, from North America, Europe, Asia, and South America. 

The study results showed that some women see gender as a barrier to pursuing a career in science, whereas men did not. When asked, “based on your experience, what do you perceive to be the biggest barrier to pursuing a career in STEM,”15% of female respondents selected gender, compared with only 2% for their male counterparts. Women also report gender inequality after attaining scientific positions.

SAB is working on getting the report put online. In the meantime I have taken screenshots of the most interesting graphics. 

A Canadian wind...

When it is cold in Chicago it usually means we are getting a stiff breeze from Canada. When it comes in over the city and hits warm air from the skyscrapers little clouds form over the city centre swirling around over the tops of the tallest towers.

These timelapses were taken yesterday. The camera is at a point west of downtown looking east.

Sunset.

@natashaloder

More on the care and feeding of journalists

OK so this is the second part of a two part item on the Care and Feeding of Journalists. Although, let's face it, this is just about feeding this journalist in particular. Although I think some of the guidance is useful for many of the people I work with at The Economist.

FAQs

What is the best way to reach you?
Email, which is my first name and second name as one word then an "@" economist.com. You can also follow me on Twitter @natashaloder, and try to catch me there. When I'm checking Twitter, I'm open to being engaged in chitchat.

Can we send you anything?
It would be great if you could exert a bit of control over what you send, it may be just a press release for you but with all the junk I get sent it is death by a thousand cuts. A previous post lists the sorts of things I am interested in. (When I start getting particularly irrelevant pitches, I have resorted to using the #spamPR hashtag to highlight the worst offenders.)

If you really must send press releases about things that we both know are of no interest, please us both a favour and don't follow up.

If you think that it might be of interest, please feel free to send a second email reminding me about the first one.

Can I get feedback on what you thought of the release?
No. Seriously. Too busy. It will either get deleted or filed if I think it might be useful later.

And if you call me to re-pitch me a press release when I'm busy please don't expect me to be delighted to hear from you. And if you say "do you have a minute right now?" that is going to make me cross because we both know it is going to take longer than this. Also you have started your pitch with something we both know is a lie... which really doesn't help your case.

I would say that one or two in ten of the people who reach me on the phone actually have something to discuss with me that I want to hear. This is a really poor hit ratio so if you are calling you need to know that I'm expecting the call is going to be a complete waste of time before I've even picked up the receiver. When we speak, be prepared to answer questions such as, "what kind of article do you imagine I might write about this?" And, "have you ever read a piece like this in The Economist?", or "how does this technology work?".

How often do you write stories based on press releases?
Not often, truth be told.

Will you send me a reply to my email?
Sometimes. If a personal pitch is made to me (not just a mass email release), and I think it has a pretty good sense of what I'm interested in, I will try and say thanks but no thanks. If it is something I might pick up on at a later date, I will try and reply.

What do you look for in a story?
See my previous post. Bear in mind that in the age of the internet, as a journalist I really do need something new and different to say. Also, you know there really are only so many articles that I can write about the scourge of antibiotic resistance or mobile digital health.

When should I contact you?
It depends on what you have. My busiest days are Mondays and Tuesdays. That said, if it is late news for that week then these days are fine. If you are wondering what the best day to send something that isn't exactly news but which you would like to read, I would suggest Thursday or Friday. If you have a story that is going to need a lot of legwork, your 1,000 page annual review of the drug industry, you should send me a note a few weeks before it is going to hit.

What are your deadlines?
This varies according to the article concerned.

Can you send me a list of questions?
If you requested the interview, NO. You already emailed me to tell me what you wanted to talk about and I said yes. Seriously total time suck all round.

If I requested it I will give you an idea of what I want to talk about. Again list of questions is total time suck, and could well have changed depending on who I've spoken to prior.



Top tips 

* Try and keep pitches focused to my main thematic areas. Business stories on health (and pharma), and medical science and technology. See previous post.

* If I do agree to speak to your executive on the phone, please do not email to ask when the story is going to come out. That just shows that you don't understand how this works.

* I detest voicemail.

* Please don't use email tracking. It is impolite. All you need to know is that I do my job by reading my email as regularly as I am able.

What do I write about?

Having been a bit quiet on the blog front I thought I would write a few blogs loosely around the subject of the Care and Feeding of Journalists. Having worked the healthcare beat for about six months, one of the things that has impressed me most is the degree of engagement by healthcare public relations folk. I read that there are four or five PR people for every journalist. Well double that in healthcare and make them about ten times more efficient and you get the picture. One of the questions they ask the most is what do I write about, what I'm interested in as well as who else writes on healthcare at The Economist. I'll try and write a bit about that in this blog, and in a later blog talk about how best to contact me.

Firstly, if you work in health PR in particular can I encourage you to follow me on twitter... @natashaloder 

I'm quite active and I tend to follow people back if they are in healthcare, as this builds my expert base. I also try to engage in debates about subjects that I'm interested in--and even ask questions. On the subject of experts, I've recently been using HARO a little as a way of finding them. I will also sometimes use LinkedIn.

So what do I write about?
So the first thing to know is that the job is global and that my focus is business and science.  That means pharma, hospitals, management of healthcare, drug categories, patenting, pricing. In the science section it means medical advances and technologies. For the purposes of business and science that means that many stories are US focused--just given the size of the industry and research base. But we are always interested in an international perspective and international business stories.

If you happen to work in these areas. Stop. Do not hit send yet. Unlike daily or mostly online media, we are very selective in the stories we do--so many of the stories I end up doing would broadly be described as trend pieces tied to news. Rarely will I do the story that says company A has invented widget B which will change the world. Sorry! If I write a story about generic medicines tied to a proposed merger of generic pharma companies, chances are we will not do the story again for some time unless something huge happens. So we tend to do a considered take on different issues as the news dictates. That said, if we have some genuine piece of news to break--we also do that.

Policy gets people confused. If you know a little about The Economist there is a front half foreign part, and a back half business part. My job is very traditionally "back half", which means that sanitation in India, TB in Russia, malaria in Africa and Obamacare in America, generally end up being "front half" stories. That is not to say I don't write about policy, only that I do when it emerges from the business or science stories.

If you have a health story that concerns international policy, your best bet is to contact either Helen Joyce (International Editor) or Geoffrey Carr (Science Editor). If it concerns an individual country, then you would want to go to the editor of that particular section. At present that would be Robert Guest (US), DominicZeigler (China), AntonLeGuardia (Africa). If the policy is more tied to some emerging issue of business or science, such as gene editing, or FDA regulation, that is my area.


Selection of stories in past six months:

Generic drugs: Much ado about something. May 2nd 2015

Worries are growing about the effects of dealmaking among generics firms

THE plot is worthy of a Shakespearean comedy. Teva is in pursuit of Mylan. But Mylan dislikes its suitor and runs away to declare its love for Perrigo, while seeking a poison pill in case it is forced to marry Teva. Perrigo, though, rebuffs Mylan. With many suitors, Perrigo is holding out for a better offer—perhaps even from Teva itself. It may not be quite midsummer but the unfolding drama featuring three generic-drug makers could well run until then. [More...]

Pharmaceuticals: Going large

A wave of new medicines known as biologics will be good for drugmakers, but may not be so good for health budgets

IN PHARMACEUTICALS, the 20th century was the era of the small molecule. The industry thrived by identifying a steady stream of relatively simple compounds that treated lots of people, patenting them and making a fortune. In the early 21st century it has become harder for drugmakers to find new cures quickly enough to replace those on which the patents are expiring. [More...]

Health in west Africa: Help in the time of Ebola, Sep 20th 2014. 

There is a scramble to control a runaway epidemic

“WE ARE exhausted, we are angry, we are desperate,” said Sophie Delaunay, the American director of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) last week, frustrated at the tardy international response to the deadly Ebola virus in west Africa. Within days of these words, the outside world was at last waking up to the danger of Ebola haemorrhagic fever—a viral disease that threatens tens of thousands of lives, health systems, economic growth and even political stability in parts of west Africa. [More...]

Ebola and politics: Mumbo gumbo, Oct 31st 2014

The hunt for Ebola medicines is being accelerated

ON SUNDAY scientists and physicians from around the world will be descending on New Orleans for the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), the world's leading convention on tropical diseases. The auspiciously timed gathering will include a number of high-profile sessions about Ebola, which promise to aid efforts to contain the disease. So it seems rather odd that an e-mail sent to participants only days before the event warned that anyone who has travelled to Ebola-affected countries within the past 21 days should best stay away. "We see no utility in you travelling to New Orleans to simply be confined to your room," said an e-mail from representatives of the state of Louisiana. It is one of several American states to have imposed a 21-day quarantine on anyone who has recently visited an Ebola-affected country. [More...]

Ebola: Fast-tracking treatments, Sep 13th 2014.

The hunt for Ebola medicines is being accelerated

THE lucky ones are admitted to a health centre. They arrive bleeding, in taxis, on foot, in wheelbarrows and sometimes in ambulances. Mostly there is little help available and patients are dying alone, lying on the ground and lucky to receive even palliative care. Médecins Sans Frontières, a medical charity that has treated more than two-thirds of the known patients, says its centres are overwhelmed. [More...]

Antibodies v bacteria: Making resistance futile, Nov 22nd 2014. Gaithersburg. 

A new way to fight bacterial infections

“Our job”, says Jan Kemper, “is to make cells happy.” Ms Kemper works at MedImmune, a subsidiary of AstraZeneca based in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Her laboratory contains 40 bioreactors—fluid-filled tanks of about three litres’ capacity. Paddles within them whirl around a mixture of nutrient broth and specially engineered hamster cells that are busy making human antibodies. [More...]

Food allergies: Patching things up, December 20th 2014. Chicago.

A new treatment for allergy to peanuts is being developed

ANAPHYLAXIS, an allergic reaction that causes swellings and rashes and can thus block a person’s airways, is always unpleasant and sometimes lethal. Often, the allergen is in a specific sort of food. Milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soyabeans and wheat are particularly risky. Together, they account for 90% of anaphylactic incidents in America, a country in which between 4% and 8% of children are reckoned to have a food allergy, and in which a third or more of such allergies are potentially life-threatening. [More...]

Pharmaceuticals: Priceless pills

Why a promising new class of cancer treatments is so hard to value

IN THE late 1800s a New York doctor noticed that getting an infection after surgery helped some cancer patients. So he began to treat cancer using infections and had a little success. But many doctors were sceptical of his work, and other treatments such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy eventually took off. Today, however, the pharmaceutical industry understands how his treatments would have worked and has placed a sizeable bet that immuno-oncology—the treatment of cancer using the body’s immune system—will yield breakthrough drugs. [More...]

Contributor:
The Ebola crisis: Much worse to come, Oct 18th 2014. 

The Ebola epidemic in west Africa poses a catastrophic threat to the region, and could yet spread further

ON MARCH 25th the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported a rash of cases of Ebola in Guinea, the first such ever seen in west Africa. As of then there had been 86 suspected cases, and there were reports of suspected cases in the neighbouring countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia as well. The death toll was 60. [More...]

Portrait of a virus: A killer in close up. Oct 18th 2014

You can do a lot of damage with just seven genes

EBOLA is a simple virus, but also a subtle one. The stringy looking particles consist of a genome wrapped up in two layers of protein (see diagram). This long, thin package, along with a large protein called a polymerase, is packed into a membrane that is studded with a glycoproteins—that is, proteins with sugar stuck to them. [More...]

The epidemic in West Africa: The war on Ebola. Oct 18th 2014.

To win it requires a much larger effort in west Africa than the outside world has so far pledged

IN SEPTEMBER 1976 scientists in Antwerp received a Thermos out of Yambuku, in what was then Zaire, with two samples from a nun who was fatally ill. One of the vials had smashed, but after scooping the other out of a pool of icy water, blood and broken glass, they discovered that they were handling a deadly and unknown virus. To spare Yambuku from infamy, they named the infection after a local river, the Ebola. [More...]

I

Our cover on Ebola this week

http://www.economist.com/printedition/covers/2014-10-16/ap-e-eu-me-na-uk

Top tips for the Kidzapalooza 2014

Ear defenders are essential if you are close to the stage.  Here watching the wonderful Portugal. The Man

Grant Park, Chicago

So we took the children to the Lollapalooza yesterday. This is Chicago's big music festival. Within the festival is a mini-children's music festival the Kidzapalooza.

The Kidzapalooza is in a great location, beneath a shady grove of trees and there was plenty of space for the children to run around, play or watch the bands.

There is plenty to fill an afternoon until the children are exhausted. We've had a long afternoon on Friday and are looking forward to a second one today.  Yesterday, there were bands that specially cater for children, one included child-songstress-superstar Laura Doherty, and Portugal. The Man. also performed specially for the children (there was even a special kids only VIP area at the front because this act attracted lots of regular festival go-ers). All the bands seem to be really into playing for kids, which made it a wonderful experience.

We relied on credit cards and the Lolla cashless band, and took minimal cash, which turned out to be a mistake. Many places we tried were only taking cash--either because they were too small to do so or their facilities to accept cards and bands were not working. Take cash.

A few points in no particular order....

Free painting at Kidzapalooza

• the drinks were expensive and they didn't accept either the Lolla cashless band or credit cards. $6 for a small lemonade which is mostly ice and water. You'll want to bring either sealed water in, or a plastic bottle you can fill up when you arrive.

• you can't bring outside food in. I understand why but it is pretty useful when you have children to be able to carry a snack so you can give them a handful of something when they announce they are hungry. We were able to stave off some mid-afternoon hunger pangs thanks to some free fro-yo ice cream and packets of pretzels. There is a cafe-style shop near the fountain, a short walk away, but they were, again, only taking cash. There was a small snack stand next to the lemonade stand but this looked like it only took cash as well. 

• The queues to get into Grant Park are lengthy. Best thing is to have one person go in through the bag check line, and someone else take the children through the Express, no bags, lane. You can then meet up at the relatively uncrowded Kidzapalooza. There is a giant yellow inflatable sign at the entrance to this mini-festival....this is a good meetup spot. (The Lost and Found, right by the main entrance, is also a good location for meeting up.)

• Long distances to get to things for little feet. Wagons are not allowed. Strollers are. Be prepared.

• take hand sanitizer and many baby wipes! You will probably want to use it on the toilet seats. Porta-potties were OK--as these things go. Although there were stands with hand sanitizer these did run out.

• The Kidzapalooza appeared to be smoke free, outside in the main park is not. 

• It is perfectly possible to take the kids to watch one of the big bands, with smaller children you'll obviously want to hang near the back where there are open lawns. You can spread out a blanket and listen there. Older ones can go further in but there will be people drinking and smoking and generally having a very good time at close quarters. You know the scene. 

• In the Kidzapalooza. If it rains there are a few places to shelter. But it wasn't particularly crowded yesterday. There was a brief shower yesterday and it was fine. But come prepared for rain or hot weather. 

• Ear defenders (these go over the ear) are essential if you want to take the children up close to the music. They are sold at the Kidzapalooza store for $20 each. If you don't want to pay this then don't take the kids too close to the amplification. It just isn't safe for their ears.

Near the main children's stage was an instrument petting zoo (i.e. play with instruments), hip hop lessons (great fun, the boys who did this were awesome), punk hairdos (a must), spray on tatoos and a very popular painting station. There were tumbling and dancing acts on between the bands.

Lots of great fun. Do bring the kids. We had a sitter in the evening and were able to make it back for the headline act last night.

What is Planetary Health?

On the shores of Lake Como in Italy, among fragrant jasmine and wild thyme, a new discipline was born this week. Its parents--in the fields of health and the environment--are not quite sure yet what to call it. Some say it should be called Planetary Health. Others are not so sure. But what everyone knows for certain here is that it is important. Critical even, because human health is at great risk from forces that remain largely invisible to society. And so a pioneering group of scientists, entrepreneurs, public health experts and folks from business, government and public health have come together to assist at its birth.

The world needs to understand planetary health to develop sustainably. In a nutshell, many human activities damage the environment and with it human health. Some of the links are obvious and direct such as pollution in lakes and rivers. Others are not. For example, there is growing awareness of the link between biodiversity damage and disease risk. Most scary of all is the rise in new human diseases that come from animals. So called zoonotic diseases whether from birds, pigs or camels are on the rise. We know that our environment provides us fish, clean water, medicines and resilience from natural disasters. We have not accounted for all that it gives us, and possibly never will. We certainly need to do more to understand it.  

But the beauty of the surroundings of Lake Como are deceptive because ugly difficulties lay ahead. Firstly, forging a new discipline is less easy than it might sound. Here you must first marry the parents. Combine ideas, research, and information from environment and public health two fields that have lived entirely separately until now and rarely spoken to one another. Yet when everyone goes home from their workshop for the most part people will fall comfortably back into their old ways of doing things and concerns and hope that someone else does the child rearing.

The second problem is that a new science is not enough--even as scientists demand more of it. There is another ingredient that is missing. A secret sauce. At the end of last year, Europe banned for a trial period the use of three pesticides suspected to damage bee populations. There isn’t hard evidence here. Yet the same collection of nations have failed to rein in overfishing where the science is perfectly clear.  

At the same time, we know that corporations and other NGOs are happy to put their thumbs on the scale in a way that suits them. In China KFC and MacDonalds and Dunkin donuts have moved into the cities and are winning the locals over to their largely unhealthy foods by arguing that they are safe to eat. Where are the advocates for putting sustainable health agenda onto the table? The individuals who are willing to stand up and say why what they are doing matters and this is important to you. But this leads us to our third problem is human nature. We all want someone else to solve our problems to recognise the importance of what we believe to be true.

The fundamental issue is that supporters of Planetary Health need to bring their ideas down to earth, they need to come from the bottom up from humanity itself and its needs. Because in truth rich countries have mostly discovered already the nature of the problem in many ways. Environmental agencies regularly consider the impact on human health when they look at the impact of new projects. And as the science grows, showing for example that green space in cities improves health, we can imagine the rich world will respond with further measures. But elsewhere there needs to be a far stronger effort to forge a relationship between human health and the environment that sustains it.

Those who wish to forge ahead in Planetary Health need find the human dimension to the problems that are out there. The stories, the people, the places, the meaning and the messages.  And who is going to knock on the doors and stand up and make the pitch to NGOs, politicians, bureaucrats and to anyone who will listen? International organisations will help eventually, and so will innovation in many unexpected ways. But at the heart of every decision we take are humans.  

In Washington they call it lobbying. The soft science of persuasion. Does anyone in the field of planetary health have the guts to do this--potentially in the face of resistance? Many people and companies make good money from environmental destruction. And our economic system is one that values products and services greatly and the quality of life barely at all.

Traditionally environmental change has been set squarely against human development. Very often we argue to cut down forests, drain rivers, use pesticides and fertilisers, belch pollution into the atmosphere to aid humans to improve development. We are unapologetic in saying that our traditional form of development is good for humans. We say that when people get rich then they will take care of the environment. But what if the environment does not continue to take care of us? And is it really necessary for the developing world to repeat the model of development that caused so much human and environmental sickness? China has a thriving economy. But can a country whose people and environment are so burdened with pollution really rich. Do we need a new vision of what prosperity means?

During the World Cup, everyone saw in Brazil what happens when two key components of a system are taken out, there was a catastrophic failure. This is exactly what has happened in ecosystems. For a hundred years our technology has largely protected us, delivering globally unprecedented gains in human health. But the worry is that as the planet comes close to its boundaries, this is now at risk.

Scientists will weakly suggest the precautionary principle. It is true much more science is needed to understand the connections. But perhaps what we need is an idea that goes beyond all of this, a vision of better human health from sustainable development.

The wealthiest in society live in idylls such as is found on the slopes of Lake Como. If we do not embrace a sustainable vision of health, not only will our chances of having everyone live this way vanish--there is a risk to the sustainability of many of our societies around the world. If this sounds too dramatic consider those in Bangladesh, or in Fiji, threatened by climate change or in communities challenged by reckless development such as the Maldives. The sad truth is that the world needs a science of Planetary Health, or whatever it is called, whether it realises it or not. We need its insight and assistance to develop sustainably and protect the future. But is the field ready to meet this need?

___________

This piece was written during a meeting held by the Rockefeller Foundation and The Economist Intelligence Unit, and was intended as a view by an Economist journalist on a project to create a new field that connects human and environmental health. It has been slightly edited since delivered.

Views, as ever, are my own and not that of The Economist. But they should be. NL, Bellagio, July 2014.