When Science Goes Wrong Read Online Free PDF

procedure that is sometimes done to alleviate the tremor of Parkinson’s disease, and in fact Truex’s tremor was lessened, according to Kay. But the thalamotomy wasn’t the main reason for taking Truex into the operating room that day. Rather, it was the ‘cover’ (as Iacono himself put it) for a second procedure that he carried out ‘on the QT’ immediately after the first.
    In the second procedure, Iacono inserted three catheters, or plastic tubes, into Truex’s brain, using the stereotaxic equipment that was available at the VA hospital. The tips of two of the tubes were guided into the left and right striatum. Iacono placed the tip of the third catheter in a ventricle – one of the large, fluid-filled cavities inside the brain. It was the left lateral ventricle, which is close to the striatum on that side. This catheter was of a different design than the other two: its back end was connected to a small rubber bladder, or reservoir, that Iacono implanted under Truex’s scalp. Then he sewed up the scalp incision with all three catheters still in place. The idea was that later, in China, he would be able to push the foetal tissue down the tubes and he’d know that it would end up in the striatum or in the ventricle, even without stereotaxic control. The catheters would serve as pre-targeted delivery chutes. What is more, Iacono thought that the inevitable tissue damage caused by the presence of the tubes would actually be beneficial to the transplant: some research suggested that damaged brain tissue releases chemicals called growth factors that encourage cell survival.
    Truex recovered uneventfully from these procedures, and a couple of weeks later the two men set out for China. They flew first from Tucson to Los Angeles. This was convenient for Kay, because the family had temporarily moved back from Boston to Manhattan Beach, where they were overseeing some work on their old property there which they planned to sell. Thus, Kay and Gene had the opportunity to come up to the airport and visit Max and Bob during their layover. Max didn’t look like a typical globe-trotting tourist: besides his obvious Parkinsonian symptoms, his head was swathed in bandages to protect the locations where Iacono had drilled through his skull. ‘He was in pretty bad shape,’ said Kay.
    At the airport, Iacono and Kay had a frank conversation. This is how Iacono recounted it to me: ‘I told Kay, “You know, I may not be able to bring him back.” And she said, “Bob, you’ve got to try …” And I said, “I may not be able to bring him back – even in a box.” She said, “Bob, please try!” So this wasn’t tiddlywinks. And I’m no Texas chainsaw murderer; I’m a very conservative neurosurgeon, by the way.’
    When I asked Kay about this, she at first denied any memory of such a conversation, but later she said, ‘I’m beginning to remember this ‘box’ thing. He probably did say something like that. He is very colourful.’
    The journey to Zhengzhou was a nightmare. Starting in Los Angeles, Truex and Iacono first flew to San Francisco, where they took a China Airlines flight bound for Shanghai. But fuel supplies ran low, and the pilot had to make an emergency landing in Japan. After a long delay they finally made it to Shanghai.
    From Shanghai, they took a train for Zhengzhou. The 500-mile rail trip took 22 hours, mostly occupied by repeated hold-ups as the steam-powered passenger train was forced to yield the track to higher-priority freight or military trains. And there was no food. Train travel in China was difficult at the best of times, but these times were far from the best: on May 4, about 100,000 students and workers had marched through Beijing to protest at government policies, and this unprecedented event had greatly alarmed the government so the entire country was in a state of tension.
    Truex had been in a bad way at the start of the trip, but by the time they arrived at Zhengzhou he was virtually