Denys Beauchemin wrote:
> Over the last several years I have come to realize that science is
> politicized in a huge way.  I lean toward thinking that government money
> in science has a nasty effect in the long run.  It kills pure research
> because research scientists have a tendency to want to eat and have
> families and for this they need money which comes in grants given by
> people with agendas.

Please wait until I have finished ROTFL.
...
There, I'm done.  ;-)

Denys is apparently unaware of the current NIH conflict of interest scandal
where agenda-driven corporate funding has corrupted the scientific process.

 From today's Los Angeles Times:

NIH to Curb Its Scientists' Deals With Drug Firms
By David Willman, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The National Institutes of Health will drastically tighten
policies that have allowed hundreds of consulting deals between drug companies
and scientists at the nation's leading center for public health research, its
director told a congressional panel Tuesday.

Announcing a sweeping set of reforms, NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni also said
that he would demand public disclosure of any future industry payments to
agency employees.

He said that, in hindsight, he should have acted sooner to crack down on the
private deals that have created potential conflicts of interest between
scientists' duties at NIH and their financial ties to industry.

"I have reached the regrettable conclusion that some NIH employees may have
violated these [existing] rules and that the agency's ethics system does not
adequately guard against these violations," Zerhouni told the House Energy and
Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

The NIH is the nation's premier agency for medical research, spending $27.9
billion this year.

Zerhouni said that as congressional investigators continued to sift through
potential conflicts of interest in recent weeks — including the discovery of at
least 100 deals that had not been properly reported — he reached a "tipping
point" regarding reform at NIH. He vowed that he and his staff would "move
diligently to completely change the system of ethics at NIH."

"You have my pledge: Any employees who violated the rules will be subject to
appropriate penalties," he said. "It's very painful to me that the actions of a
few may have tainted the good work of thousands of scientists who have not
participated in any of these actions and who work daily at NIH to solve the
mysteries of disease and to advance treatments and cures for these diseases."

...remainder snipped...

Free registration is required to read the entire article at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nih23jun23,1,6146904.story
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