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Dr. Bernard Fisher, the Pittsburgh professor who directed the breast-cancer studies, feels no need to apologize for his handling of the situation. "We were the ones who determined there was a fraud," he says. Fisher points out that government officials told him not to discuss the case publicly until their investigation was finished. That was more than a year ago, but, says Fisher, his summary of the case needed to be reviewed by many colleagues before publication. He promises that a 50-page report will become available later this spring and that he is rushing a letter to the New England Journal.
Many doctors and their patients would have preferred to know much sooner that serious doubts had been raised about a major breast-cancer study. "I was shocked," says Dr. Freya Schnabel, a breast surgeon at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. "When these things happen, it's better to air it out promptly and let everybody know about it right away." That's the way science is supposed to work.
CHART: NOT AVAILABLE
CREDIT: American College of Surgeons
CAPTION: CHANGING STRATEGY
Use of different breast-cancer treatments as a percentage of all cases
In 1985 new research established the effectivness of lumpectomies.