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6. Science in the Public Eye
- University of Massachusetts Press
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{ 94 } CHAPTER 6 SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC EYE 7 The Monday following the EPA’s meeting in late September 1996, we conducted a third survey of the frogs at the Ney Pond. This time a troubling 32 out of 70, or 47 percent of the frogs were deformed, much worse than earlier in September, when we logged 8 percent abnormal, or in July when only one frog out of 124 we collected had a small defect. With each survey the percentage of deformed frogs was increasing. How would people react if such a horror were happening to newborn humans? Forty-seven percent! What was causing this, and what could be done to stop it? Back late from the field trip, I decided to go up to my desk and quickly check for messages before heading home. Mark was still working at his computer as I walked into our work area. “The Washington Post has an article today about deformed frogs and the Duluth meeting,” Mark said. “You’d better look at it. What’s more, CBS News showed up here today in response to it.” I pulled up my e-mail and saw that an article, titled “In Minnesota Lakes, An Alarming Mystery,” had run on the front page of the Washington Post (Souder 1996). The article summarized the students’ 1995 discovery of deformed frogs and reviewed the previous week’s deliberations among { 95 } SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC EYE researchers at EPA’s lab in Duluth. Scientists had many ideas but no answers, and the possible causes of the deformities were “almost limitless.” Local reporters jumped in (Lien 1996). “Your phone has been ringing off the hook,” said Mark. Sure enough, my voice mail was jammed with requests for interviews with local and national TV networks, newspapers, and radio stations. Minnesota’s frogs had moved onto the national stage. Suddenly, like it or not, we were going to be thrust into the media spotlight , and I was not happy about the prospect of doing science in the public eye. I headed home, feeling overwhelmed by the avalanche that was about to cascade over our heads. I could see my life spinning even further out of control. How was I supposed to catch up on commitments like the overdue reports to the EPA we’d had to put on hold while out surveying the frogs and wetlands all summer long? How could I sustain my focus on the frogs when the media was about to suck away our time and energy to do that work? During those first days in October, the exhilaration of all the media attention swept me unexpectedly into its seductive embrace, temporarily overriding my resistance. I had several deformed frogs still alive in the lab, frogs I had intended to preserve properly for analysis by our research partners. Instead, I offered them up to the visiting news crews, thinking at the time that this exposure might ultimately help our cause and that of the frogs. When calls came up from the MPCA receptionist to alert me that a scheduled film crew had arrived downstairs I swelled with gratitude, and—I admit—some self-importance. Before this, I’d dreaded giving my work time to the media. But now the outside world was about to acknowledge that Mark and I were involved in a significant environmental issue, that deformed frogs merited attention. I knew many agency staff took the frog deformities very seriously; I just wasn’t convinced our management did. We continued to feel marginalized, out there working on fringe issues like wetlands and frogs, not in the agency’s mainstream. I dashed down the windowless stairwell to greet the film crew and escort them to the biology lab in the basement, lifted the malformed frogs out of their aquarium, and placed them on a cart covered with a rubberized mesh material. Men shouldering large video cameras hovered over the tiny frogs to capture their feeble attempts at escape, their off-balance leaps that landed them belly up and helpless looking because of a faulty leg. Complicit in the whole process of exposing these frogs, I even nudged one to make it leap, knowing it would flop over for the camera. The media has been described as a monster that must be fed, and for a [54.221.69.42] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 15:21 GMT) { 96 } CHAPTER 6 few days I fed it with the live frogs that I had tried unsuccessfully...