EXPOSED:
THE BOGUS WORK OF PROF BRIGGS Page 1
The
Sunday Times (London) September 28 1986
Professor
Michael Briggs, an eminent British scientist, faked
major research on leading brands of contraceptive
pill now taken by 10m women around the world. An
investigation by BRIAN DEER
First read our front
page report on the Briggs fraud
DEAKIN
UNIVERSITY lies just outside the small town of
Geelong, an hour’s train journey west of
Melbourne on Australia’s south coast. Road
traffic is light and the squat, modern buildings of
student, arts and science blocks barely disturb the
peaceful Victoria countryside. It is not the sort of
place where one expects to find major research going
on.
But it was to
Deakin’s little campus that Professor Michael
Briggs came in 1976. His background was beyond
reproach. The British scientist had a string of
publications on the contraceptive pill. To Fred
Jevons, Deakin university vice-chancellor, he was the
sort of academic who might put the university on the
map.
“It was
Briggs who really started to get research going, and
who built up the school of sciences into what it is
today,” says Jevons. “He brought funds from
drug companies to buy equipment for students to work
with. Personally, he was charming and we often had
dinner together.”
Briggs, now
aged 51, assumed the post of professor of human
biology and head of the sciences school. His teaching
duties were extensive, mainly coaching Ph.D students
in biochemistry. But he was also able to continue
work he had begun in Zambia four years previously on
one of the most remarkable series of research
publications that has ever been produced.
Under his
authorship, or jointly with his wife, Dr Maxine
Briggs, he produced over 10 years some 55 research
papers, and almost as many detailed reports in
letters to science or medical journals. Most were on
various aspects of contraceptive safety.
Briggs’s particular speciality was in subtle
blood chemistry changes that might predict long-term
risks from the pill.
He was also a
special adviser to the World Health Organisation and
was often seen at European or American gatherings of
endocrinologists - the hormone specialists who
dominate contraceptive science. At these meetings he
brought a new prestige to Deakin University, and,
among senior hormone researchers, won a tremendous
personal regard.
It was around
1982, however, that the warmth of his reception began
to decline by degrees. Briggs was not alone in the
scientific areas on which he wrote. Rivals began to
wonder about some of his results. Not only were a
number of his findings questioned, but so were the
means by which he so swiftly published them.
“It was
incredible, unbelievable, the things he was
reporting,” says Dr Bryan Hudson, who lives in
Melbourne, and who was at the time president of both
the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the
International Society of Endocrinology. “Our
professional colleagues abroad were saying they
simply did not believe that he could do major studies
in the way that he described.”
CONCERN over
the long-term risk of the contraceptive pill has been
rising during its 25 years in use. Few doctors doubt
that health hazards exist, and product information
supplied to them is required to point this out. What
remains in doubt is what balance can be struck
between risks and benefits.
The incidences
of cervical and breast cancers among pill users have
been raised, doubted and raised again. Just as
important are the connections feared by doctors
between taking the pill and the development later in
life of heart attacks, strokes and raised blood
pressure. These are grouped together as vascular
disease.
Since the
pill’s introduction, research findings in this
area have been important in leading to a progressive
reduction in the hormone content of the contraceptive
pill to reduce the risk. In 1969, the British
government’s safety watchdog said that the
hormone oestrogen should be reduced. In 1977, a study
by the Royal College of General Practitioners led to
efforts to cut the other hormone in pills,
progestogen.
But cuts in
hormone content can only be pursued to the point
where the pill remains effective. Because taking the
pill also affects menstruation, settling a regular
cycle through hormone control, varying the chemical
content of pills can also cause erratic, breakthrough
bleeding.
