In recent years the long-rejected theory of the bacterial etiology of peptic ulcers has been resurrected and transformed into consensus knowledge. The history suggests that the stability of consensus knowledge on the noninfectious nature of chronic disease may be open to question. Cancer research has a similar history in which alternative bacterial programs were not only rejected and forgotten, but actively suppressed. Two types of accountability are analyzed. On the one hand, while nonmainstream researchers are rightly held accountable to the strictest standards of their field, the standards themselves should be evaluated because they are defined hierarchically in ways that create biases against the nonmainstream research programs. On the other hand, the general research field is accountable to the public, and it should evaluate alternative research programs according to fair scientific standards. The cancer research field presents a massive policy failure on both counts; new policies are needed to allow for the evaluation of potentially safe and efficacious nontoxic therapies that have been 'orphaned' because they are not patentable and are therefore unprofitable. © 1998 OPA (Overseas Publishers Association).