Sid Bonkers said:
Unbeliever said:
I am not convinced Sid that DUK and the universities are unaffected by politics or by big business. Surely everyone and everything is . I always think of DUK as a quango and university research has to be sponsored.......
I believe that every registrar has to do a year in a lab doing clinical trials prior to becoming a consultant as well as charity and government funding. The fact is that drug companies do not look for cures as curing is not their business they research new drugs because drugs are their business.
To suggest that charities like cancer research and diabetes uk are in some way in league with the phama companies is ridiculous IMO
Now you've all gone and got me started again. Haven't had to write one of these in weeks :x
Thanks Sid for standing up for us scientists. :wave:
It really is quite offensive to us when people suggest that we can be corrupted to the extent that a whole scientific research team could be bribed to hold back on positive results. The whole ethos of science is to make progress not to make money.
Let me try and explain why using an actual case of a big pharma attempting to do what some of you have suggested.
Back a few years ago there was if you remember something called the Human Genome Project. It was a world wide collaboration to map all the DNA in humans. Its results would be a database that other scientists could use as an immensely powerful research tool for future medical research.
In very simple terms a US corporation run by a guy called Ventner decided to usurp the research when the US government decided it would withdraw its portion of funding the project. Ventners corporation came in and effectively said it would take over the funding on the condition that it ended up owning the database and would then charge other scientists for access to the data. The US government stood by and did nothing causing outrage in the general scientific community. So what happenned?
At the meeting that Ventner planned to announce his coup d'état in front of the worlds press a man from the UK who worked for a charity called the Welcome Trust stood up and said the following.
"I represent a charitable scientific organisation called the Welcome Trust. We have access to funds in excess of
250 BILLION dollars and will use it all if necessary to fund the
ENTIRE human genome research project if you force us to AND we we make all the research and data completely freely available to everyone"
Ventner closed up shop pretty soon afterwards.
So with players like the Welcome Trust around who can take on and defeat both large corporations and even the US government there is very little chance of any corporation ever being able to hide the results of research.