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The Body Electric
posed experiment. By this time we were obviously competent to do
them, and we would be judged on the basis of past productivity. On
that score we had no worries. We'd led the way in bioelectricity research
and we were arranging the first conference ever in our specialty of
growth control. Moreover, after our application was filed, during the
symposium, I arranged for the chiefs of the various VA research sections
to visit our lab, inspect the facilities, meet my replacement (Dave Mur-
ray), and discuss our future course. They said they wanted me to con-
tinue part time. Suddenly I felt we might survive after all.
Then, around Thanksgiving, came word that our application had been
disapproved. The director had pulled the same switch. She'd changed
procedures after receiving the proposal, instructing the reviewers to con-
sider it as a "type I" application from a new investigator, with emphasis
on future plans. As might be expected, one of the peers said, "This is a
poorly written, overly ambitious, incompletely detailed proposal." An-
other wrote, "Dr. Becker is one of the pioneers in the field of electrically
induced osteogenesis and regeneration. His work is visionary and excit-
ing, yet at the same time it is controversial and lacks quantitation." The
same old gobbledygook! Overly ambitious? By whose standards? Vision-
ary and exciting? Exactly what do you want in a research project? Quan-
titation? If you can start to grow a leg back on a rat, what statistics do
you want besides the procedures, photos, and the number of experi-
mental animals and controls?
Soon after the rejection, I heard hints through intermediaries that the
director might be willing to let us keep the laboratory together if I
severed all my connections with it and if the remaining members agreed
not to do any research on regeneration or electropollution. With such an
agreement, it might be possible to get interim funds pending action on
new proposals from my co-workers. The restrictions didn't leave much
room to work, but at least my people's livelihood would be spared for a
while, so we got back on the peer review treadmill.
Andy Marino, Joe Spadaro, and Dave Murray all submitted proposals
of their own late in 1979. Approval of any would have kept the lab
open, but the VA director went outside normal procedures to ensure
rejection of each one. She chose an ad hoc committee instead of the usual
peers to evaluate Spadaro's application. One of the critiques objected to a
lack of guidance for him due to the fact that "we understand Becker is
retiring." To judge Marino's plan for testing the three methods of elec-
trical osteogenesis for long-term side effects, she bypassed the reviewers
who would have been chosen routinely, picking instead someone who
had no trainning in orthopedics but who could be counted on to reject
anything remotely associated with me.