Frank Macfarlane Burnet - Later Life

Later Life

Following his resignation from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Burnet was offered an office at the University of Melbourne in the School of Microbiology. While at the university, he wrote 13 books on a variety of topics including immunology, ageing and cancer, and human biology. He also wrote an autobiography entitled Changing Patterns: An Atypical Autobiography, which was released in 1968. In all, he wrote a further 16 books after his retirement from the Hall Institute. He was known for his ability to write quickly, often without a final draft, and his ability to convey a message to readers from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, but he was himself sceptical that his opinions had much influence. In 1969 he published Cellular Immunology, considered his magnum opus on immunity, attempted to show how various phenomena could be predicted by the clonal selection theory. The following year, he wrote Immunological Surveillance, which expounded his established opinion that mammals could immunise themselves through their ability to detect foreign patterns in the body. He continued to maintain an intense and focused work schedule, often shunning others to keep up a heavy writing load.

He became president of the Australian Academy of Science in 1965, having been a foundational fellow when the Academy was formed in 1954. He had been offered the presidency in 1958 to replace the inaugural head Sir Mark Oliphant, but declined, although he served on the council and as vice president in 1961–63. As president he was recognised by both government and the public as the leading scientist in Australia. His stature as a scientist gave him the gravitas to end policy disputes, and gave the Academy and its advocacy more credibility in the eyes of government and industry. As such his term was considered to be highly successful. Oliphant said that Burnet's personal prestige was very important in the increased respect the AAS won and that he "made the biological sciences far more acceptable in Australia".

He helped establish the Academy's Science and Industry Forum, which was formed in the second year of his leadership in order to improve dialogue between researchers and industrialists. It investigated whether a national science policy should be formulated and led to the eventual creation of the Australian Science and Technology Council. He also laid the foundations of the Australian Biological Resources Study. When his presidency ended in 1969, the Academy founded the Burnet Lecture and Medal, which is the Academy's highest award for biological sciences.

As in many of his previous pursuits, Burnet set an ambitious agenda for himself but ran into difficulties. He saw the Academy as the peak lobby group of the scientific community and their main liaison with government and industry. He tried to lift its profile and use it to persuade the political and industrial leadership to invest more in science. He also wanted to use the Academy to increase the involvement of the eminent scientists of Australia in training and motivating the next generation, but these initiatives were not successful due to a lack of concrete method. Most controversially, he tried to change the membership criteria of the Academy. He wanted to stop the Royal Society from operating in Australia and accepting new Australian members. He reasoned that the Australian Academy would not be strong if the Royal Society would be able to compete with it, and he felt that if Australian scientists were allowed to possess membership of the both bodies, the more established Royal Society would make the Australian Academy look poor in comparison. Questions were raised over the existing dual members—such as Burnet—being able to maintain their status and the hypocrisy thereby entailed in Burnet's nationalistic proposal, and it was defeated heavily.

In 1966, Burnet accepted a nomination from Australia Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies to become the inaugural chairman of the Commonwealth Foundation, a body that aimed to increase the professional interchange between the various nations of the British Commonwealth. Burnet served in the role for three years and helped start it on a path of steady growth, although he was unable to use it as a personal platform to espouse the importance of human biology.

Burnet's essays and books published in his later life caused contention within the scientific community and to the chagrin of his peers Burnet often made pessimistic proclamations about the future of science. In 1966 Burnet wrote an opinion article for The Lancet entitled "Men or Molecules?" in which he questioned the usefulness of molecular biology, arguing that it had not and would not contribute anything of use to medicine and that manipulation of the genome as had been demonstrated in bacteria would do more harm to humans than good. Gustav Nossal subsequently described Burnet as "a biologist with a love-hate affair with biochemistry, which led to a brief but damaging rejection of the worth of molecular biology."

He delivered the inaugural Oscar Mendelsohn lecture in 1971 at Monash University and advocated policies for Australia such as population control, prevention of war, long-term plans for the management of the environment and natural resources, Aboriginal land rights, socialism, recycling, advertising bans on socially harmful products, and more regulation of the environment. He angrily denounced French nuclear testing in the Pacific, and after consistently voting for the ruling Liberal Party coalition as it ruled for the past few decades, signed an open letter backing the opposition Labor Party of Gough Whitlam, which took power in 1972. However, he soon spoke out against Whitlam's lack of action against tobacco advertising and French nuclear tests. Burnet often found himself frustrated with the refusal of politicians to base policy on long-term objectives, such as the sustainability of human life.

In 1971–72, he wrote four books, most notably, Genes, Dreams and Realities, which caused great controversy due to its strident attacks on molecular biology, cellular biology, and claims that cancer and various other diseases were incurable and that it was pointless to try to do so. He also predicted that scientific progress would end soon.

Burnet spoke and wrote widely on the topic of human biology after his retirement, aiming to reach all strata of society. He courted the media as well as the scientific community, often leading to sensationalist or scientifically unrigorous report of his outspoken views. This often angered colleagues, who viewed him as abusing his stature to deliberately cause a stir. In 1966 Burnet presented the Boyer Lectures, focussing on human biology. He provided a conceptual framework for sustainable development; 21 years later the definition provided by the Brundtland Commission was almost identical. In 1970 he revised an earlier book which was published as Dominant Mammal: the Biology of Human Destiny; it was followed by Endurance of Life, which was published in 1978. The books discuss aspects of human biology, a topic which Burnet wrote on extensively in his later years. In Dominant Mammal he argued that the roots of all human behaviour can be found in the behaviour of animals; in Endurance he addressed issues of ageing, life, death and the future of mankind. The books strongly polarised the scientific community, and one reviewer described his ideas of sociobiology as "extreme" and giving "a dismal, unappealing view of humanity". In Endurance of Life, he also called for society to accept euthanasia of ill older people, repeat violent criminals, and most controversially, abortion of pregnancies likely to result in disabled children, and infanticide of handicapped newborns. Knowing that there would be a strong backlash for such policies, he departed overseas for a two-month lecture series at the time of the book launch. In his absence, he was strongly assailed in newspaper letters and some correspondents compared his stance on infanticide to that of Adolf Hitler. At the same time, he also changed his stance on nuclear power and advocated its use, and the reinvestment of revenue for research into solar power. This about face angered the environmental movement.

His first wife, Edith Linda Druce, died from lymphoid leukaemia in 1973, after a four-year struggle. During her final years, Burnet refused all offers of lectures overseas to spend more time nursing his ailing wife. For a period after this he became very lethargic and reclusive, numbed by his wife's death. He then moved into Ormond College for company, and resumed beetle collecting, but for a year after her death, Burnet tried to alleviate his grief by writing mock letters to her once a week. Gradually he regained his enthusiasm and began writing again. In 1975, he travelled to California to deliver a series of lectures. In 1976 he married Hazel G. Jenkins, a widowed former singer from a business family in her 70s who was working in the microbiology department as a librarian, and moved out of Ormond College.

In 1978 Burnet decided to officially retire; in retirement he wrote two books. During this time, he missed his laboratory work, and he was constrained to social events and theorising. In 1982, Burnet was one of three contributors to Challenge to Australia, writing about genetic issues and their impact on the nation's impact. As a result of the success of the book, in early 1983, Burnet was appointed to the 70-person Australian Advisory Council of Elders to offer counsel to policymakers, but the group folded after several members became too frail or died.

Burnet continued to travel and speak, but in the early 1980s, he and his wife became increasingly hampered by illness. Having surmised his illness two years earlier, in November 1984 he underwent surgery for colorectal cancer. He made plans to resume scientific meetings, but was then taken ill again, with significant pain in his thorax and legs. Secondary lesions were found in June 1985 and declared to be inoperable and terminal. A supporter of euthanasia, Burnet was unfazed by his imminent death, and he died on 31 August at his son's home at Port Fairy after two months of illness. He was given a state funeral by the government of Australia; many of his distinguished colleagues from the Hall Institute such as Nossal and Fenner were pall-bearers, and he was buried near his paternal grandparents after a private family service at Tower Hill cemetery, near Port Fairy. Following his death he was honoured by the House of Representatives; Prime Minister Bob Hawke took the highly unusual step of moving a condolence motion, an honour typically reserved for parliamentarians.