Remember when I wrote about the Lauterbur/Damadian mess, courtesy of a Jovana Grbić review of a book by Morton Myers in C&EN? Well, someone writes in this week's issue to complain that Myers, the book author himself, was involved in the feud (emphasis mine):
[I can't quite figure out who Dr. Stanley Manatt is, but he appears to have been publishing J. Org. Chem. articles in 1959, so he must know something about the era...]
...Just what evidence does Meyers have for the claim in his book that Lauterbur tried to prevent Damadian from receiving NIH funding? In fact, for several years Lauterbur could not get funding, whereas Damadian received generous funding from NIH.
When Lauterbur was at SUNY Stony Brook and tried to get the radiology department involved in MRI, he was thwarted by Meyers. Thus, one can wonder about Meyers’ motives in attacking Lauterbur in his book. One is left to ponder the value of this book as a seminal read on scientists’ motivations, cronyism, and dishonorable tactics.
Stan ManattIt is always interesting to me how brutal and drawn out these battles can become and how personal the stakes can be. (I wonder if Dr. Manatt's allegations are true?)
La Cañada Flintridge, Calif.
[I can't quite figure out who Dr. Stanley Manatt is, but he appears to have been publishing J. Org. Chem. articles in 1959, so he must know something about the era...]
Manatt was a long-time resonator at JPL. He's a stand-up guy.
ReplyDeleteI didn't try to cut your funding, you tried to cut my funding!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think we need some kind of outside adjudication on this matter. Anon comments aside, I don't know any of the players or who was involved in the feuding. Yes, if Myers was involved it was pretty bold to write a book about it.
Sounds like that whole crew is a bunch of cutthroat jerks.
ReplyDelete