Powerful cancer therapies, then, will always entail some risk of babies born with flippers instead of arms. And by the way, if you want an abortion in a bottle, you need a pill that does a lot more than just damage dividing cells. The rocket scientist and his TV impresario never make calls like those, never even acknowledge they exist. They'd never admit that there is no single answer, that the only sensible course is to give mothers and grandmothers fair warning and then leave the matter to the individual patient and doctor. Instead, the rocket scientist stages his silly tests, presents his fudged calculations, shoots his fraudulent videos, and then prescribes sweeping remedies in 30-second sound bites.
Real science is more modest.
It leaves more space for individual choice and private judgment. NBC has paid a price for having been caught with rockets in its pockets. It made a number of people walk the plank. But countless other mass-panic artists have peddled rocket science over the years, performing with impunity before judges, juries and regulatory tribunals. People have died as a result.