While I haven't seen all of those flicks, some, particularly Monster, are good. If you haven't seen it, you might give "In America" a try. The performances of the two young girls was right on. Meanwhile, on the Canadian- US cultural dichotomy, I was watching the Chappelle Show last Wednesday, and David did a skit were he was running for office. After delineating the pathetic failure of this countries health care system, he gave his solution - fake Canadian ID cards. Thought of that as I read
Medical Research Dealings Explored by a Senate Panel
Senators sharply questioned health officials on Thursday about a possible need for stricter limits and disclosure requirements for government medical researchers who enter into lucrative consulting deals with drug and biotechnology companies.
In a crowded hearing room, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, told officials from the National Institutes of Health that secret consulting deals and the appearance of conflicts of interest were a "major problem" that the agency had to take steps to eliminate.
"This subcommittee is prepared to do it if you don't," he warned.
Mr. Specter and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, the chairman and the senior Democratic member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, called the hearing to investigate issues raised by The Los Angeles Times. The newspaper reported last month that some employees of the agency, including several institute directors with $200,000 salaries, had earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from drug companies that might benefit if their products were used in N.I.H. studies.
The paper also said that although employees had to get approval from their superiors for any outside work, in many cases government rules allowed them to describe their deals in documents that could not be viewed by the public.
Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the agency's director, told the senators that he had ordered a review of all outside projects. Thus far, he said, there has been no evidence that patients have been harmed because of the business connections or that any company has enjoyed undue influence over grant proposals or other agency decisions.
"The reality of conflict is not there," Dr. Zerhouni said in an interview after the hearing. "There's more agitation than there is substance. But on the other hand, I don't want to minimize the issue."
He said that he favored full disclosure of all consulting deals by researchers, but that current rules prevented him from requiring it.
Dr. Zerhouni's agency is a driving force in the nation's medical research, both in conducting studies of its own and in giving research grants to outside scientists. But like most medical research institutions in recent years, it has struggled to compete with the higher salaries paid by drug and biotechnology companies and by some elite universities, which in addition allow scientists to profit from their inventions. The institutes' rules on consulting work used to be stricter but were relaxed in 1995, in part to help the agency recruit top scientists and avoid losing them to higher bidders.
Of about 6,000 scientists employed at the institutes, 228 now have outside consulting agreements, an agency spokesman said. Some have more than one, for a total of 365 agreements, many of which do not have to be disclosed to the public. There is no limit on how much money researchers can make, and they can accept stock or options. Consulting fees can total tens of thousands of dollars, and a few researchers have received stock options worth as much as $300,000.
As for limits, the consulting cannot involve information from the scientists' government research that has not yet been publicized, and clients cannot be those that the scientists deal with as part of their jobs at the institutes.
At the hearing, Dr. Zerhouni said he was creating an independent panel of outside experts to examine the agency's consulting guidelines and, within 90 days, recommend any changes needed to remove all appearances of conflict. He named the panel's co-chairmen — Dr. Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, and Norman R. Augustine, chairman of the executive committee of Lockheed Martin — and said they would choose the other members.
Dr. Zerhouni said he wanted the panel to consider whether a distinction should be made between researchers who have decision-making authority, like institute directors, and those who do not. Consulting by decision makers may create an appearance that businesses can influence the direction of research, an appearance that Dr. Zerhouni said must be avoided.
But that could require curtailing outside consulting by institute heads. And that raises yet again the question of how to keep talented people.
Senator Harkin said government researchers simply should not work for industry at all. If they finally decide to leave the health institutes for higher-paying jobs, he said, "well, that's life."
nytimes.com
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As I keep saying, it's not some tinkering that is needed, it's changing the system.
JMO
lurqer |
