The Chemical World This Week

GARTER MERGES FEDERAL ENERGY PROGRAMS The federal government's energy R&D and demonstration programs underwent another shakeup last week when President Carter sent to Con­gress legislation creating a new Cab­inet Department of Energy. Under the legislation, the Energy Research & Development Administration, which was created only two years ago out of the old Atomic Energy Com­mission and has since become the country's second largest dispenser of R&D funds, will be abolished and its functions taken over by the new de­partment. In addition, both the Fed­eral Energy Administration, which oversees allocation of and price con­trols on petroleum and petroleum products, and the Federal Power Commission, which regulates inter­state and intrastate natural gas pipeline rates and electric utilities, also will be abolished. The new de­partment will have about 19,800 employees and a budget of about $10.6 billion in its first year.

On announcing the new depart­ment, Carter said that it "will make it possible for us to evolve very quickly a comprehensive energy policy and will give us an opportunity to regulate production and distribution of energy along with pricing concepts clearly and, I believe, cohesively." Further, he says, the department "will allow us for the first time to match our R&D program to our overall energy policies and needs."

The new department also will pick up a number of functions now han­dled by the Department of Interior. These include the Bureau of Recla­mation's regional marketing func­tions over electric power, Interior's four regional power administrations, the Bureau of Mines' coal develop­ment and energy data programs, and the Geological Survey and Bureau of Land Management's control over the rate of public land leasing and rate of energy production from those lands. Interior would retain control over the actual leasing of public lands.

Other responsibilities picked up by the new Energy Department from other departments and agencies in­clude authority to set building con­servation standards, from the De­partment of Housing & Urban De­velopment; voluntary industrial conservation programs, from the Commerce Department; adminis-

Carter: matches program to our neçds

tration of and jurisdiction over naval petroleum and oil shale reserves, from the Department of Defense; authority to regulate electric utility mergers, from the Securities & Exchange Commission; and authority to set oil

British biochemist fakes Scientific forgery isn't new but when it comes to light it invariably causes some consternation. The latest chapter in scientific chicanery was disclosed in England late last month in a remarkably candid letter printed as a "statement" in Nature. In the letter Dr. Robert J. Gullis confesses to having published false information in the scientific literature.

"I wish to disclose the fact that papers published in several journals with myself as principal author are not reliable," writes Gullis, a young biochemist with a Ph.D. degree from Birmingham University. "The curves and values are mere figments of my imagination. I published my hy­potheses rather than experimentally determined results" (Nature, Feb. 24, 1977, page 764).

The "findings" stem from Gullis' studies on the response of cells to various opiates. The research was carried out for the most part at the Max-Planck-Institut fur Biochemie in Martinsried, West Germany, where he spent two years after receiving his Ph.D. There, he was engaged mainly

and coal slurry pipeline rates, from the Interstate Commerce Commis­sion.

In addition, as Carter points out, there are now more than 250 energy data programs operated by more than 20 executive departments and agen­cies. All of these will be consolidated into the new Energy Department under an Energy Information Ad­ministration.

However, not all energy functions are consolidated into the new agency. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for example, has been left strictly alone. And in an effort to placate legislators worried about putting FPC with its quasi-judicial and regulatory power in the new department, the legislation establishes a Board of Hearings & Appeals, which while in the department is supposed to be free from the control of the Secretary of Energy. The proposed reorganization cannot go into effect until approved by Congress. But that approval is expected to come swiftly, with hear­ings on the proposal slated to begin in the Senate next week. D

research data I in measuring the levels of cyclic gua-

nidine monophosphate (GMP) in neuroblastoma cells and in neuro-blastomaglioma hybrid cells. In all, he cites seven papers in Nature,- the Federation of European Biochemical Society Letters, the Biochemical Society Transactions, Biochemical Journal, and the Journal of Ν euro-chemistry. In addition, there is ref­erence to a chapter appearing in "Opiates and Endogenous Opioid Peptides" that Elsevier put out last year.

Doubts about the validity of the results soon arose. In a letter accom­panying Gullis', Dr. Bernd Ham-precht, who directed the work at the Max-Planck-Institut, writes, "after Dr. Gullis left, several of my col­leagues repeated this work but were unable to reproduce it. Dr. Gullis was asked to return to our laboratory and repeat his essential experiments under supervision. In none was [he] able to obtain his previous results. Neither morphine nor levorphanol nor the enkephalins nor cholinergic

I agonists changed the level of cyclic

4 C&EN March 7, 1977

GMP in hybrid cells. [He] admitted having invented the results of all his experiments/'

The reason Gullis gives for his de­ception is that "I was so convinced of my ideas that I simply put them down on paper; it was not because of the tremendous importance of published papers to the career of a scientist."

Gullis, who couldn't be reached for comment, concludes in his letter, "I must take full responsibility for these unfortunate incidents and have con­sequently suffered. I hope that my experiences are noted by others, and I would like to apologize to the sci­entific community and the various people involved." D

FMC upset over carbon tet spill charges FMC Corp., reacting to what it calls "unsubstantiated charges" that its huge plant at South Charleston, W.Va., was the source of the massive 70-ton carbon tetrachloride spill in the Kanawha and Ohio rivers last month, went on the offensive last week. Company officials are livid because they believe the company has been unjustly blamed for something that may not have even happened.

Based on the company's own in­vestigations, FMC doubts that such a large carbon tet spill ever took place, although the company doesn't flatly deny that it did or that its South Charleston plant may have been the source. " We have used every technical means available to us in an attempt to find evidence that would support [the Environmental Protection Agency's] claim," says FMC executive vice president Raymond C. Tower. "We have been unable to do so," he adds. Another company spokesman points out that, if the plant had lost 70 tons of carbon tet at one time, "we cer­tainly would have known about it."

Meanwhile, Tower also lashed out at EPA for "vastly exaggerating" the potential threat of a second carbon tetrachloride spill and for "unduly exciting acute public concern." The second spill, 5500 lb, was much smaller than the alleged 70-ton spill. FMC accepts responsibility for the smaller spill. In fact, the company reported it. What irks FMC is that EPA, according to Tower, "again whipped up public concern" over the 5500-lb spill when peak concentra­tions of carbon tet were reported in the very low parts per billion as the spill passed Cincinnati.

Tower says that the best medical evidence indicates that public health was protected by several orders of magnitude. Using data that EPA

provided the media, a toxicological expert hired by FMC found that an individual would have to drink from 1800 to 5000 gal of contaminated water (100 ppb) at one sitting. "That just isn't possible," says Tower.

Based on all the evidence, Tower says, no public health crisis exists and that worried residents along the rivers should be so advised. "Neither the public nor FMC has been well served by EPA's mishandling of this situa­tion," he says.

Tower also commented on an in­spection tour of the South Charleston plant made by a team of EPA and state investigators. In their two-hour debriefing the team made no emer­gency recommendations. Nor did EPA officials present any evidence linking FMC with the alleged 70-ton spill.

Contacted by C&EN, an EPA spokesman repeated the agency's claim that a 70-ton spill did occur, although he didn't offer any data to substantiate it. But he did deny that EPA ever blamed FMC for the spill. "We don't have any idea of where it came from," he says. Π

Pepsi finds polyester bottles to its taste In the wake of Monsanto's decision to suspend production of acrylonitrile/ styrene copolymer soft drink bottles (C&EN, Feb. 28, page 10), activity has stepped up in advancing polyester resin containers.

Pepsi-Cola Co. has announced that after six months of test marketing it will begin bottling its soft drink in plastic bottles made of the polyester resin, linear polyethylene tereph-thalate. Sales will begin in selected cities in the near future, according to Pepsi president Victor A. Bonomo.

The polyester resin used in Pepsi's bottles will be supplied primarily by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., under the name Cleartuf, to bottle manu­facturers at Amoco Chemicals, Owens-Illinois, and Hoover Ball & Bearing Co.

In preparing for the move, Good­year has expanded its Point Pleasant, W.Va., polyester plant 25%. The company expects polyester use for bottles to jump from zero during 1976 to more than 50 million lb this year. Goodyear will be supplying well over 90% of the polyester resin for the bottles.

The companies involved see no problems for the bottle such as those that occurred with Coca Cola Co.'s acrylonitrile container. The polyester resin being manufactured by Good­year has approval from FDA for bot­tle use dating from 1973. Indeed, it has been used since 1954 as a food wrap and as a frozen food pouch de­signed for boiling.

Pepsi says that the polyester bottle is energy efficient and can be a source of energy having the same fuel value as low-grade coal. According to the company, FDA's recently published environmental impact statement confirms that the polyester bottle is a potential source of energy savings.

Pittsburgh Conference sets stage for microprocessor era

The microprocessor era in analytical instrumentation arrived fully in Cleveland last week sit the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry & Applied Spectroscopy. As registrants in record numbers crowded onto the floor at the Cleveland Convention Center, again the site for the conference, they found the devices ubiquitous. In just two years, since their first appearance in several instruments, microprocessors have been incorporated into hardware design in most every instrumental area—from gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer systems to infrared spectrophotometers to automated wet chemistry systems. As for the conference, it continued its rec­ord-breaking tradition. At midweek, registration already had passed last year's record total of about 8000 and seemed headed for 9000 or more.

March 7, 1977 C&EN 5