| Subject: science public or private? |
Author:
pjk
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Date Posted: 01/13/06 11:10:03pm
It seems like this topic deserves it's own heading after the krz and pa posts.
I've skimmed a half dozen articles on the topic tonight and am humbled at how quickly one can dig in by use of this largely public-funded, freeware inspired vehicle our dear leader once refered to as "the internets."
Of the articles I found:
A Wall Street Journal article about Genentech blocking a business partner from getting a peanut/allergy med on the market for fear of future competition with one of its own (that they weren't intending to develop in the same way).
A Krugman article:
"The point is that the whiff of corruption in our medical system isn't emanating from a few bad apples. The whole system of incentives encourages doctors and researchers to serve the interests of the medical industry."
An interview with Sheldon Krimsky:
Most of what I have focused my research on in scientific ethics are the ties that have grown between private industry and academia. The connection has strengthened beyond simply private industry supplying more money to academia. The connection has also grown because more and more professors are working in private industry. This means that professors are increasingly connected financially to the success of their research. There is a growing link not only in the influence that industry has over funding of research in academia, but also the way in which professors participate in industry.
and:
When you look at the scientific method and the peer review process, the easiest way to manipulate results is in how you ask questions and who asks questions. If you conduct a study and at the end say drug ‘X’ is successful in 15% of cases, a pharmaceutical company can turn around and say that the criteria for success is only 10%. Then they can say that a drug that was only 15% successful is more effective than what was anticipated in clinical trials. Increasingly, pharmaceutical companies are funding studies, designing protocols, influencing what gets published, educating physicians, supporting journals, and marketing directly to consumers.
Daniel S. Greenberg:
4. But doesn't the U.S. face a serious shortage of scientists and engineers? The alarmists of scientific decline and neglect have been proclaiming that danger for 40 years. The truth, however, is that Ph.D.'s are in oversupply in many fields, unable to find jobs suitable to their training. In the biomedical sciences, Ph.D. production far exceeds job openings. One result is the growing practice of serial post-doctoral appointments—a low-wage "holding pattern" for surplus Ph.D.'s. For sound economic reasons, increasing numbers of American students are shunning scientific training and the questionable opportunity to serve as scientific stoop labor for grant-laden professors.
and :
5. The scientific enterprise prospers from public and political recognition of the value of research—for health, prosperity, national security, and a clean environment. But, in pursuing its economic well-being, science does not rely solely on good will. It lobbies, hard and effectively, for government money. Lobbying for science is a major sector of Washington's thriving lobbying industry. At a minimum fee of $20,000 per month, lobbyists-for-hire hustle pork-barrel appropriations for scientific clients in universities. Scientific associations maintain lobbying staffs to keep the money flowing to their rank and file, while members of Congress, eager to please the academics back home, pack spending bills with special helpings of designated pork. Universities rarely boast about getting money by this backdoor route, since pork violates the pious commitment to impartiality and objectivity in the award of federal research money. But many top-line schools arduously chase pork-barrel appropriations. Do you get a whiff of hypocrisy? No wonder.
Austin Cline:
In another case, an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) could not do an assignment because it was related to corporate work he was involved in privately - he had signed a non-disclosure agreement preventing him from discussing that work. This company was owned by an MIT faculty member and the student's instructor owned a competing firm - as a result, the instructor of was accused of using his homework as a form of corporate espionage!
the word: "Oncomouse"
a Harris poll that put drug companies on par with oil companies (lowest of the low) as per American perspective and (lack of) favorability
..... the last grain of sand in my head has fallen to my toes and it's time to go to bed
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