CO R R E S P O N D E N C E

NATURE MEDICINE VOLUME 12 | NUMBER 2 | FEBRUARY 2006 161

Replies to ‘Physician, heal thyself’To the editor:Nature Medicine’s September editorial1 addresses several painful facts, and I appreciate that they have been brought into consideration. Nevertheless, the editorial’s interpretation of these facts is grossly misleading, as it conveys the idea that we Mexican scientists do not care about our society. This is utterly wrong and adds insult to injury. Mexico is being suffo-cated by scientific illiteracy. To me, a society is not scientifically illiterate only when it lacks science, but also when it would not know what to do with science if it were available.

Mexican state officials and entrepreneurs collapse under the competition of foreign science and technology. Yet very seldom, if ever, do they resort to our universities and institutes for help. For scientifically illiterate people, reality is very simple, as it only con-siders a single variable—money. Every prob-lem is discussed in terms of budget. For them, knowledge is nothing but financed ignorance. They speak of supporting science, not of using science to support industry. The amount of money that entrepreneurs spend on foreign patents is immensely greater than the money they devote to developing local knowledge and

training people. After many years devoted to acting as an interface between the worlds of academia and of industry, leading Mexican physicist Leopoldo García Colín sadly com-mented, “We do not have entrepreneurs; just manufacturers and vendors.”

Directors of state institutions that govern science try to dissuade researchers from wast-ing time on Byzantine basic science and ask them to concentrate on applied science. The situation is akin to declaring that our econ-omy is too weak to produce tangerine trees and then expecting that we grow tangerines directly without the trees. In order to apply science, one must first have science to apply. However, unlike information, which can be stored in computers and libraries, knowledge needs the mind that knows, and this mind has to be trained by scientists. By no means is applied science “anathema for many Mexican scientists,” as the editorial states. We are not guilty if, once those minds are produced, they have to stay in the First World because our society has no use for them.

Our institutions evaluate research on the basis of the number of articles we produce. It is no wonder that scientists feel forced to

concentrate on publishing articles on ‘me-too science’ and that they cannot engage in daring projects. When scientists pool their abilities to undertake meaningful projects, they are dis-missed as ‘not yet independent’ and are refused grants and promotions. As for the comment that this situation “has not been seriously criticized,” I would like to call attention to the recent book People Without Science2, written by myself and Laura Reinking, in which we discuss the issues raised by the editorial. Yet the “new discourse on innovation and the benefits that come with it” that is invoked are not being heard. I have not seen the book in the hands of those politicians and economists that pon-tificate on science and society.

Marcelino Cereijido

Department of Physiology, Biophysics and Neurosciences, Centro de Investigación y Estudios Avanzados, Avenida Instituto Politéchnico Nacional 2508, Colonia Zacateno, Código Postal 07360, México, D.F.e-mail: cereijido@fisio.cinvestav.mx

1. Editorial. Physician, heal thyself. Nat. Med. 11, 907 (2005).

2. Cereijido, M. & Reinking, L. People Without Science (New York, Vantage, 2005).

To the editor:I was quite surprised by your September edi-torial1, which refers to an article published in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada in which the president of Mexico is said to be an igno-rant rancher unable to understand the value of science2.

The motives for such an editorial are a bit unclear in view of the ideas put forth, which are quite similar to the views expressed by the director of the Mexican Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT), who, incidentally, has recently been made to resign. Nonetheless, the editorial is appreciated as it points to some real problems permeating Mexican science, although it is somewhat misinformed. First, although it is true that CONACyT’s budget is about $800 million, this figure is the total amount of what is called

Branch 38, which covers the support for 27 public research centers, fellowships for post-graduate studies and the monies to support the National Research System—a unique system that covers salaries for productive scientists. Within this budget, a sum of only $60 mil-lion is used to support successfully evaluated basic research projects in all areas of science. So to equate the amount of funding available in Mexico with that available in the US is at best a sophism.

Second, the argument that human and not financial resources account for the scientific gap between US and Mexico is wrong. The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for example, has some 200 postdoctoral fellows (70% national and 30% foreign) for whom we provide funding. We have many more requests that we do not accept due to lack of money. It

is also false that US labs do not spend on post-doctoral trainees because they bring their own fellowships. Mexico does not fund postdoc-toral trainees, and rightly so, as we feel that the responsibility of the salary of a postdoctoral trainee should rest on his or her lab. This is why we pay the salaries of postdoctoral train-ees and expect similar retributions. We don’t support trainees who want to return to Mexico, because the government has not invested in providing openings for repatriations, particu-larly during this administration. So, again, it is lack of money, not human resources, which is at the root of the problem.

The ‘me-too science’ argument is well taken and points to a real problem with our scientific output. In 1984, the government created the National Research System, which prevented exodus of Mexican scientists due to very low

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