FRC: CANCER FUNDS BEING MISUSED IN SEARCH FOR `GAY GENE' FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL URGES CONGRESS TO PROBE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE, OTHER AGENCIES WASHINGTON, Nov. 1, 1995 -- The Family Research Council issued the following: "Taxpayer funds earmarked for cancer research apparently are being siphoned off by gay activists at the National Cancer Institute and at other federal health agencies in an attempt to find evidence for a `gay gene,'" said Robert H. Knight, Family Research Council's Director of Cultural Studies and author/editor of several monographs on genetic studies and homosexuality. "Congress needs to look into this now, before any more monies are ill-spent," Knight added. "I think it's apt that they chose Halloween to dress this thing up and pretend it is something other than what it is," Knight said of the Hamer study. "But it is time to quit tricking the public into treating the homosexual activists to a taxpayer-funded agenda. And it's time to take a closer look at the studies that are generating these claims." The issue arose when a study led by a National Cancer Institute (NCI) scientist was published in the November issue of the journal Nature Genetics and publicized widely on Oct. 31. Written by a research team led by NCI geneticist Dean Hamer, the study purports to replicate results from an earlier Hamer-led study concerning markers shared on the X chromosome by pairs of homosexual brothers. Knight noted that most press accounts have failed to include several key facts: 1) The federal Office of Research Integrity is investigating alleged fraud on the part of Hamer in his well-publicized 1993 "gay gene" study. A colleague of Hamer has charged that Hamer selectively reported data in ways that enhanced the study's thesis. 2) Earlier this year, Hamer was reassigned to other areas of research, such as smoking and cancer, by the National Institutes of Health after ethical questions arose about his study. 3) Hamer's co-researcher, David Fulker, told the Chicago Tribune (June 25, 1995): "If the second study were the first study, it wouldn't have been published. The second study is not strong enough (statistically) to stand on its own." 4) Hamer's work has been criticized by other prominent scientists, including several at Columbia University. 5) Hamer is not identified as being a homosexual activist himself, despite documentation that he tried to organize a gay activist group at NIH and has spoken to gay activist groups such as Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. At one P-FLAG meeting in Maryland on Nov. 21, 1993, according to an eyewitness account by Lambda Report editor Peter LaBarbera, Hamer told the audience that he was pleased with media coverage, and that "if you tell the press what to write about a scientific study, they'll write it." He added that he told reporters that his study's findings show that sexual orientation is like being left-handed, and that they obliged him: "That's what I told them to say, and they said it." Hamer ordered reporters, who complied, not to ask questions about his sexual orientation before allowing interviews on several top news programs. 6) Scientists do not regard a single follow-up study by the same researcher as confirmation of an initial result. Replication must come from other scientists and numerous replications are needed before decisive conclusions are drawn. The Post does note far into the story that a similar attempt by other researchers in Ontario failed to replicate Hamer's findings. The Post also underplays the fact that Hamer's latest study is less statistically significant than the first. The new study found that 66 percent of the gay brothers shared the same genetic markers, which is considerably less than the 82 percent reported in the first study. (50% is assumed to be the standard finding for everyone). 7) Fully 22 percent of the non-gay brothers had the same markers. If Hamer's conclusion is that genetic makeup is determinative for homosexuality, why isn't this fifth of the sample of non-gay subjects ... gay? Hamer also never has explained why he did not include a heterosexual control group in his first study. 8) Hamer's first study, in the journal Science, was released on the very day (July 15, 1994) that President Clinton announced his plan to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military. The current study is being publicized a) one week before a gay rights referendum in Maine, the only statewide vote on the topic in the nation in 1995; b) when the U.S. Supreme Court is considering the Colorado Amendment Two case; and c) a week after the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association met in Washington and exacted promises from prominent mainstream reporters that they would do all they could to advance the homosexual agenda. Other federal scientists, including some at the National Institute of Mental Health, are also joining the search for a "gay gene," despite decades of evidence that homosexuality is most likely triggered by gender identity problems stemming from inability during childhood to bond with a same-sex parent. Hamer colleague Angela Pattatuci, an open lesbian, is conducting a taxpayer-funded search for a lesbian genetic source. "It's time to find out why the federal government is diverting the tax dollars of hard-pressed families away from cancer research and into such areas as the search for the elusive 'gay gene,'" Knight said.