The man who orchestrated a British medical scandal – and suddenly died
策劃了一場(chǎng)英國醫(yī)療丑聞并突然去世的人

Joanne Briggs’s debut, The Scientist Who Wasn’t There, is an astonishingly original memoir about truth, identity and the ethics of science. It’s thrilling, unsettling – and really rather odd. Winner of theinaugural Bridport Prize for Memoir in 2023, the award that cinchedthe book’s publication, it explores the enigmatic – if not completely bizarre – life of Briggs’s father, Professor Michael Briggs, a man whose illustrious,globe-trotting scientific careerconcealed a vast labyrinth of deception.
喬安妮·布里格斯 （Joanne Briggs） 的處女作《不存在的科學(xué)家》（The Scientist Who Wasn't There） 是一部關(guān)于真理、身份和科學(xué)倫理的原創(chuàng)回憶錄。這令人興奮、令人不安——而且真的很奇怪。該獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)是 2023 年首屆布里德波特回憶錄獎(jiǎng)得主，該獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)為該書的出版奠定了基礎(chǔ)，它探討了布里格斯的父親邁克爾·布里格斯教授的神秘的生活，如果不是完全離奇的話。這個(gè)人杰出的環(huán)球科學(xué)生涯隱藏著一個(gè)巨大的欺騙迷宮。

Born in Manchester, Professor Briggs became a research scientist who worked at NASA, an advisor to the World Health Organisation, and a successful executive in the pharmaceutical industry. On paper, his was a classic rags-to-riches story: he was a self-made, charismatic visionary who surfed the post-war technology boom. But in 1986, his careerimploded when a Sunday Times exposé linked him to the hormone pregnancy test Primodos, which worked by triggering menstruation in non-pregnant women, and was alleged to have caused serious birth defects. It seemed Professor Briggs had been faking results.
Briggs 教授出生于曼徹斯特，后來成為美國宇航局的研究科學(xué)家、世界衛(wèi)生組織的顧問，以及制藥行業(yè)的成功高管。從紙面上看，他是一個(gè)典型的白手起家的故事：他是一個(gè)白手起家、有魅力的夢(mèng)想家，在戰(zhàn)后的技術(shù)繁榮中沖浪。但在 1986 年，當(dāng)《星期日泰晤士報(bào)》的一篇曝光將他與激素妊娠試驗(yàn) Primodos 聯(lián)系起來時(shí)，他的職業(yè)生涯崩潰了，該試驗(yàn)通過觸發(fā)非孕婦的月經(jīng)起作用，并被指控導(dǎo)致嚴(yán)重的出生缺陷。布里格斯教授似乎一直在偽造結(jié)果。

Things get stranger. Professor Briggs not only appears to have forged his qualifications, laundered research funds and bullied sceptical colleagues and anyone who doubted him – he may also have been a spy. He appears to have worked for the British government, possibly connected to Cold War intelligence gathering; may have been involved in espionage in East Berlin, and then somehow got caught up in the making of Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. His death abroad, aged 51, was so sudden that Briggs speculates that there may have been some kind of cover-up.
事情變得更奇怪了。布里格斯教授似乎不僅偽造了他的資歷，洗白了研究資金，欺負(fù)持懷疑態(tài)度的同事和任何懷疑他的人——他還可能是一名間諜。他似乎曾為英國政府工作，可能與冷戰(zhàn)情報(bào)收集有關(guān);可能參與了東柏林的間諜活動(dòng)，然后不知何故卷入了斯坦利·庫布里克 （Stanley Kubrick） 的電影《2001：太空漫游》的制作。他在國外去世，享年 51 歲，非常突然，以至于布里格斯推測(cè)可能存在某種掩蓋行為。

What begins, then, as a daughter’s ostensibly simple search for the truth about her absent father, soon becomes a forensic and yet also fantastical investigation – part legal inquiry, part philosophical meditation. A trained lawyer, Briggs approaches the evidence as a prosecutor would: poring over professional records, interviewing colleagues and meeting with the victims of her father’s lies and misconduct.
然后，一開始是一個(gè)女兒表面上簡(jiǎn)單地尋找她缺席的父親的真相，但很快就變成了一場(chǎng)法醫(yī)調(diào)查，但也是一場(chǎng)奇幻的調(diào)查——部分是法律調(diào)查，部分是哲學(xué)冥想。作為一名訓(xùn)練有素的律師，布里格斯像檢察官一樣處理證據(jù)：仔細(xì)研究專業(yè)記錄，采訪同事，并與她父親的謊言和不當(dāng)行為的受害者會(huì)面。

Primodos involved high doses of synthetic hormones and though the causal link has never been confirmed, women who used it reported children with defects such as spina bifida, limb abnormalities, and heart issues. Briggs reveals that her father manipulated or suppressed data about these effects while being professionally involved with the pharmaceutical company producing it.
Primodos 涉及高劑量的合成激素，盡管因果關(guān)系從未得到證實(shí)，但使用它的女性報(bào)告說，兒童患有脊柱裂、肢體異常和心臟問題等缺陷。布里格斯透露，她的父親在專業(yè)參與生產(chǎn)這些數(shù)據(jù)的制藥公司時(shí)，縱或壓制了有關(guān)這些效果的數(shù)據(jù)。

But the book is also wildlysurreal: Briggs imagines conversations with her father in which they debate the boundaries between science and science fiction, and the book eventually resolves into musings and reverie. The overall effect, frankly, is dizzying – pleasantly so. Briggs often hints that she herself doesn’t know the difference between fact and fantasy; in a rather cryptic, ambivalent author’s note, she writes: “My memory of the past is as much made up of dreams, impressions, false beliefs, fantasies, feelings and notions as it is of facts [...] which I hope makes my memoir authentic. But is that a true story? Well, yes, it is to me.”
但這本書也極具超現(xiàn)實(shí)主義色彩：布里格斯想象著與她父親的對(duì)話，他們?cè)趯?duì)話中爭(zhēng)論科學(xué)和科幻小說之間的界限，這本書最終變成了沉思和遐想。坦率地說，整體效果令人眼花繚亂——令人愉快。布里格斯經(jīng)常暗示她自己不知道事實(shí)和幻想之間的區(qū)別;在一篇相當(dāng)神秘、矛盾的作者筆記中，她寫道：“我對(duì)過去的記憶既是由夢(mèng)、印象、錯(cuò)誤的信念、幻想、感受和觀念組成的，也是由事實(shí)組成的......我希望這能使我的回憶錄真實(shí)。但這是真實(shí)的故事嗎？嗯，是的，對(duì)我來說是這樣。

True or not, the book defies neat categorisation. It’s certainly a book about a very peculiar, unsavoury man, but it’s also a vivid depiction of a world in which ambition and imagination collide, with devastating human consequences. Briggs does, at various points, express deep moral ambivalence about writing the book: she wrestles with the ethics of exposing her father’s legacy, particularly given the trauma already borne by his victims.
不管是真是假，這本書都無法進(jìn)行整齊的分類。這當(dāng)然是一本關(guān)于一個(gè)非常奇特、令人討厭的人的書，但它也生動(dòng)地描繪了一個(gè)野心和想象力碰撞的世界，給人類帶來了毀滅性的后果。布里格斯確實(shí)在不同時(shí)刻表達(dá)了對(duì)寫這本書的深刻道德矛盾心理：她與揭露父親遺產(chǎn)的道德問題作斗爭(zhēng)，特別是考慮到他的受害者已經(jīng)承受了創(chuàng)傷。

She describes a childhood overshadowed by confusion, secrecy and emotional neglect, but also moments of awe and admiration for her father. Their relationship, as reconstructed here, was fraught and complex – marked more by absence than presence, but never entirely devoid ofconnection or longing.
她描述了一個(gè)被困惑、秘密和情感忽視所籠罩的童年，但也描述了對(duì)父親的敬畏和欽佩的時(shí)刻。正如這里所重建的那樣，他們的關(guān)系是令人擔(dān)憂和復(fù)雜的——更多的是缺席而不是存在，但從來沒有完全沒有聯(lián)系或渴望。

The Scientist Who Wasn’t There is not only an indictment of one man’s lies and deceit and his descent into moral oblivion, therefore, but a study of duplicity; personal, institutional, even national and international. Briggs slowly assembles a counterbalanced, complex kind of truth, one that acknowledges the impossibility of total objectivity but which nonetheless insists on the value of the attempt. “He only ever travelled in one direction,” Briggs writes of her father. “Forwards, away from the smoke of burning bridges.” She, in contrast, with admirable insight and considerable nerve, turns back – to sift through the still smouldering ruins.
因此，《不在場(chǎng)的科學(xué)家》不僅是對(duì)一個(gè)人的謊言和欺騙以及他墮落到道德遺忘的控訴，而且是對(duì)口是心非的研究;個(gè)人的、機(jī)構(gòu)的，甚至是國內(nèi)和國際的。布里格斯慢慢地組裝出一種相互平衡的、復(fù)雜的真理，它承認(rèn)完全客觀性的不可能性，但仍然堅(jiān)持這種嘗試的價(jià)值。“他只朝一個(gè)方向走，”布里格斯寫道她的父親?！跋蚯白?，遠(yuǎn)離燃燒的橋梁的煙霧。”相比之下，她憑借令人欽佩的洞察力和相當(dāng)大的勇氣，轉(zhuǎn)過身來——在仍然冒煙的廢墟中篩選。

The Scientist Who Wasn’t There is published by Ithaka at ￡20. To order your copy for ￡16.99, call 0330 173 0523 or visit Telegraph Books.
The Scientist Who Wasn't There 由 Ithaka 出版，售價(jià) 20 英鎊。要以 16.99 英鎊的價(jià)格訂購副本，請(qǐng)致電 0330 173 0523 或訪問 Telegraph Books.

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