The last time Cecile Janssens researched a scientific study, it was precisely a vaccine against cancer. The Amsterdam research was praised at the talk show tables. In her column for NRC Janssens explained why the hype was too good to be true. This was a study without a control group. Among nine dogs. Where survival was never looked at. Final verdict: a rattle investigation.
A few weeks later it turned out that Janssens himself had acute leukemia. She passed away on September 8.
As an epidemiologist, Cecile Janssens fought tirelessly against weak and hyped studies. She always managed to expose weaknesses in method or statistics. But Janssens was more than a teasing spirit of jubilant science. She gave shape to critical thinking in her lectures, on Twitter and in her column. She included her audience in her reasoning and showed that you don’t have to be a professor of epidemiology to think independently.
With her fiery red hair, long black coat and snakeskin cowboy boots, Janssens was a striking appearance. She was a quick thinker and also expressed those thoughts quickly and unfiltered. To the outside world, that could be intimidating, but people around her trusted her honesty. “Cecile was both sharp and blunt,” said Marta Gwinn, a fellow epidemiologist at the CDC (US RIVM) in Atlanta. “Many people at the CDC, myself included, found her refreshing. Her brusque appearance was compensated by an enormous good humor and good will.”
Janssens (1968) grew up in Oisterwijk in Central Brabant, as the oldest sister in a safe and stable family. That changed when Cecile’s mother died in 1979. “I think that’s why Cecile thought she should get the most out of life,” says her brother Hans Janssens. “When I see how hard she’s worked, the trips she’s made, the marathons she’s run, it seemed like she wanted to make up for Mom’s missed life.” Janssens was already competitive and allergic to dishonesty then. Hans: „We played table tennis all summer long in what we called the ‘back upstairs’, in an old factory building of my grandfather. At the end of the summer there was an absurd score on the board: 346-312.”
Big promises
Janssens zigzagged into epidemiology. After high school and a psychology degree in Utrecht, she eventually ended up in Rotterdam, at Erasmus MC. Initially, she researched the well-being of people with multiple sclerosis. But she became fascinated by the rise of the genetic test. Geneticists and companies promised patients and customers accurate predictions of future diseases based on DNA. Janssens realized that the great promises could not always be fulfilled. “It was a theme that she saw could make a difference,” says Eline Bunnik, who obtained her PhD at Janssens and is now a university professor of medical ethics. But initially she did not receive a subsidy for DNA testing, she wrote in her column. There was a lack of relevant preliminary research.
Understandable, but then I’ll do that research elsewhere, Janssens concluded. She joined CDC Atlanta in 2006 and wrote a series of highly cited articles on the predictive value of testing. It turned out to be the right step: she made a career in Rotterdam and was appointed professor of translational epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta in 2012.
During her time at the CDC, Janssens struggled with whether she could come out. “I was not aware of her struggle,” said Marta Gwinn, CDC colleague. “To me she always seemed out of the closet and the CDC is a fairly LGTBQ-friendly environment.”
The Cecile who came back this year was milder and much wiser too
To Emory, Janssens eventually made the decision to stop doing research. She was looking for time and freedom to think. She set up a ‘Science in the Media’ course for students. She started writing columns and a book. Brother Hans Janssens saw that his sister had found some peace. “A very ambitious person left. The Cecile who came back this year was milder and also much wiser.”
In Atlanta, she designed a new scientific literature search system: CoCites, which finds relevant scientific articles by looking at which articles are often cited together. To her surprise, the system worked better than a simple keyword search. Exemplary for the original thinker that Janssens was, says Eline Bunnik. “Then we all work in science in a system where we search for most cited articles, and then she has an idea how we can do that much better.”
Special beer and bitterballen
Janssens remained a Burgundian all her life. She combined walking tours with specialty beer and bitterballen. For her trips, she packed suitcases full of sealed pieces of cheese. To hand out, but also for personal use.
As a columnist, she delivered late. She was able to announce that very charmingly. “Column is coming”, Janssens emailed after the deadline. “If I succeed, I will write about Famke-Louise, Dolly Parton and evidence-based corona policy.” Or: „I have once again written a column that slightly exceeds my expertise. […] A survey among philosophers in the Netherlands also revealed that opinions on this subject differ. How nice is that!”
Janssens was about to start a new life in Brabant. Her book on science in the media was almost finished. She would join the Scientific Council for Government Policy, which advises the government. And she would live with a new love in Oisterwijk, with a view over the forest and meadow.
But in the spring Janssens started to suffer from a fatigue that would not go away. Leukemia, it turned out later. Even on her sickbed she managed to put the value of science into perspective. As a numbers expert, she knew better than anyone: survival is for groups, science cannot predict what will happen to the individual. “The figures that I calculate as an epidemiologist are of no use to me as a patient at the moment.”