Checking false claims to scientific discoveries

By Alex Abutu

For Nigerians living with the HIV/AIDS virus nothing
could have been more soothing than the news,
in 2000, of a scientific breakthrough that suggested
an eventual cure for the pandemic.

With thousands dying daily, the claim by Dr Jeremiah
Abalaka, an Abuja-based medical doctor, was seen
as a ray of hope for the already hopeless and hapless
victims.

But that hope was not to last as the authorities rejected
the said discovery when Abalaka refused to submit his
claims for scientific verification.

The team from the federal ministry of health that
sought to investigate Abalaka's claims concluded
that his discovery was premised on ''other means
rather than scientifically acceptable methods''.

But hardly had the euphoria on Abalaka's claim
died out than another Nigerian scientist came up
with yet another claim to a similar discovery.

This time, it was Dr Jacob Abdullahi, an Abuja-based
laboratory technologist who also claimed to have
discovered another cure for the HIV/AIDS infection.

Before peers, scientific societies and the general
public could come to terms with the purported claim,
a lot of people infected with the virus had surrendered
themselves to be used as guinea pigs to prove the
efficacy of Abdullahi's drug.

As it was in the case of Abalaka, Abdullahi
outrightly rejected attempts by experts and federal
government officials to authenticate and subject his
claims to internationally acceptable standards.

An angry Abdullahi alleged that he was being
persecuted by jealous colleagues. At a point, he
said his ``stunning discoveries'' were only being
``rejected and ridiculed'' because of his religious
convictions and the minority status of his Igala
nationality.

Owing to the freedom enjoyed by Nigerian
scientists claiming to have the cure for all kinds
of ailments, scientists from other countries with
stringent laws where such practices would have
been rejected as unethical, have found a haven
in Nigeria.

Such people have continued to exploit the gullible
members of the public. One of them is Prof. Anumag
Ngu, a Cameroonian, who submitted a proposal on
HIV/AIDS cure to the federal government in 2004.

Stakeholders, who felt that the claim had some merit,
prevailed on the federal government to constitute an
inter-ministerial committee to verify the claim. I

ncidentally, Ngu is being accorded a special treatment
in Nigeria even as his claim was outrightly rejected in
his native Cameroon.

Experts, who faulted the attention given to the
Cameroonian, appear poised for the last laugh
as the committee is yet to submit its report, some
four years after.

A member of the committee who pleaded
anonymity recently told journalists that there
was no substance to the claim. ``We have tried
our best, but there does not appear to be any
thing serious in the claim,'' the member stated.

Another celebrated case was Dr Ezekiel Izuogu's
well-publicised claim to achieving a breakthrough
in ''Emagnetodynamics'' in 2007. Izuogu, who
announced his discovery at a news conference,
declared that his finding had proved the age-long
Physics law of energy conservation wrong.

At that briefing, he called on the federal government
to patronise his discovery as it was capable of solving
Nigeria's energy crisis.

Izuogu said that the discovery had disproved the
law of conservation of energy with the invention of a
self-sustaining ``New Machine''.

The law of conservation of energy, a very crucial
law of Physics and Engineering, stipulates that energy
can neither be created nor destroyed.

Izuogu said that the New Machine would be drawing its
energy from permanent magnets to function.

``This will prove the all important law of conservation
wrong,'' he claimed.

He explained that the invention built on the principles
of ``Emagnetodynamics'' was premised on the
foundation that ``permanent magnets may contain
use.''While scientists continue to verify Izuogu's claims,
analysts have faulted the idea of first announcing
scientific discoveries to the media.

They say that there are acceptable procedures which
discoveries, inventions and innovations must pass
through to gain societal recognition.

One example, they often cited, is Edward Jenner's
discovery of the cure for Small Pox in 1840.

The discovery, which was published in a journal,
was subjected to debates, public criticisms and
reviews until all the doubts were cleared.

Another scientist, Robert Koch, discovered the bacterium
that causes anthrax in 1876, and subjected the finding to
peer analysis both in Berlin and Egypt.

But the situation is different in Nigeria as criticisms by
peers and calls for analysis by the public are viewed as
deliberate attempts to run down the personality of the
scientist.

Worldwide, scientific claims are first published in journals,
giving opportunities to other scientists to take serious look
at the claim and subject such to test.

The publication also gives the claimant the opportunity of
having his works assessed and criticised by his peers to
enable him make amends where necessary.

An interesting dimension is the fact that peer-reviews
are not limited to the area where the claimant is based.

They are read globally and the contents subjected to
global criticism, assessment and improvement. In 1862,
for instance, a French scientist, Alexandre Beguyer de
Chancourtois, developed a way of representing elements
by wrapping a helical list around a cylinder.

The finding was published in a journal, resulting in analysis
and criticisms that set the pace for what today is known as
the Periodic Table. Chancourtois' work was to wait until
1869 when a Serbian scientist, Dmitri Mendeleev, came
up with the Periodic Table, having analysed the earlier works
undertaken by Chancourtois courtesy of its publication in a
journal.

For this discovery, Mendeleev was awarded the Nobel prize
in 1890.

Some observers blame the growing number of false
claimants to medical and scientific discoveries in the
country to the fact that there is no officially designated
institution charged with the responsibility to verify and
check claims by scientists.

They say that the situation can be sanitised if there is
an independent commission or organisation saddled
with the responsibility of verifying such findings.

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), the Pharmaceutical
Society of Nigeria (PSN), and the Nigerian Academy of
Science (NAS), appear not to have shown much interests
on what is happening.

But while the debate rages on the ways to minimise
scientific fraud, pundits say that thousands of people die
daily for subscribing to uncertified drugs produced by
fraudulent claimants.

Analysts have, therefore, called on the government and
research institutions to explain why such persons who
seek after fame and wealth should be allowed to freely
administer drugs that have not been scientifically verified.

They say that the only way to demonstrate their disapproval
of the claimants' activities will be to institute legal
proceedings against such persons.

That way, they reason, fake claimants will be forced to
leave the scene and serve as deterrent to others like
them.

My stories

This blog is dedicated to science stories from Nigeria and purely my works. Suggestions on how best the stories should be written is welcome.

Alex Abutu