Italian virologist Ilaria Capua turned politician threw in the towel. After 3 years in politics, she left Italy and return to science, frustrated by what it says is an unscientific attitude among other politicians. Capua, an expert on avian influenza, will become director of the Health Centre One of Excellence for research and training at the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville June 20.
In 2013, Capua took a leave absence as director of the Biomedical Sciences Division of the Istituto Sperimentale delle Venezie Zooprofilattico in Padua, Italy, a government laboratory for veterinary research, after was elected to the Chamber of deputies for Scelta Civica, a party led by economist and then- Prime Minister Mario Monti. Capua has been under criminal investigation since 05, resulting in a formal charge in 2014 it sold and trafficking in avian influenza viruses between 1999 and 08. She said the charges were baseless, but they did it a "lame duck" in Parliament.
Capua entered politics at the invitation of Monti; he wanted candidates with technical expertise to join his new reformist party. But his experience since then has been "surreal," she said. In a book published in January, the emphatic Capua observed behavior of colleagues and too formal procedures Montecitorio, the seat of the Chamber of Deputies, as a scientist who studies an unknown insect. "Politics is a complicated world, especially if you think in a rational manner and related facts. I often feel appalled," she said.
It irritated difficult relationship between Italy and the instance of science because when lawmakers ordered a value of € 3 million clinical trials for a stem cell treatment that most the scientists said was false, or when prosecutors arrested measures to control the spread of Xylella fastidiosa , a bacterium that kills the trees, and spread of the disease accused scientists. "Italy has no culture in the policies based on science," she said.
A bill to strengthen the position of scholars who earn a European grant in the Italian institutions and implement elements of the European Charter for researchers, which contains guidelines for the scientific development career has never even debated in the House, despite being supported by 60 other MEPs. It shows "a clear lack of interest to the research questions, "says Capua.
Yet Capua says she is proud of a handful of initiatives that Parliament has adopted as resolutions to curb the rise of antibiotic resistance and to be implemented on the basis of evidence-European regulations on animal experimentation, a hot topic in Italy. She also managed to get a property tax exemption for past research.
Qu'est- what will happen to the judicial inquiry against Capua, which also covers 40 other people, including officials of the Ministry of Health, private business managers, and leaders in government labs, is uncertain. The accusations are very serious, ranging from attempts to spread the disease, which is punishable by life imprisonment in a criminal association aimed at corruption, concealment, and the administration of drugs that endanger public health.
The survey, which took more than a decade, is based on extensive wiretaps. But Capua and others have said that investigators Carabinieri, the military police of Italy, have misinterpreted their conversations, and a senior official at the health Carabinieri investigation department (NAS) recently told a considers that the investigation has produced no evidence beyond the recorded calls. (Marco Datti, head of NAS and the report's author who started the case must be tried himself in another case.)
A judge could decide to close all Capua and the case against other accused as early as next month. For most charges, strict Italian law limitations has already expired. A prosecutor in Verona, where Capua will be held, has already issued a motion to dismiss the most serious charge, that of "spreading epidemics," while the prosecutor of Padua, who manages another part of the survey increased dismiss all charges.
"One thing I learned: I'm much more careful in my telephone conversations, and now tries to leave no room for interpretation," says Capua, who denies any wrongdoing. She says she has fully revealed his involvement in the case where she was interviewed by UF and was told that the question "does not apply at all." (University representatives were unable to respond to requests commented today.)
Capua the survey exposed to intense attacks by political opponents, said Maria Chiara Carrozza in Rome, an industrial bioengineer who served as education minister of Italy from 2013 until 2014. These attacks tend to be "more fierce" when the accused is a woman, said Carrozza, now a member of the Democratic Party, who said she "understands" the choice to Capua go. "Italian politicians are not used to listening to the views of researchers," said Carrozza.
At UF, Capua will be in charge of a research and training program in "health," an approach that aims to connect the fields of animal, human and environmental health. Despite several large outbreaks of disease scale, politicians and the media do not make account the urgency of combating emerging diseases, she said. "We need to insert existing expertise in biomedical and veterinary science in an integrated approach that encompasses several disciplines and engages policy makers and citizens."
Capua became well known in the world of influenza to a stand for public access to genetic information on influenza and refusing to participate in a database that made the data available only to selected researchers. It considers that the most recent pleas for science open Zika respiratory syndrome in the Middle East, and Ebola prove she was right.
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