5 ms·

You should realize how important money is in research today. The main job nowadays of principal investigators (PI) for research labs is to write applications fo

You should realize how important money is in research today. The main job nowadays of principal investigators (PI) for research labs is to write applications for grants and fundings. These labs are usually underfunded and will accept any private funding if necessary. For example, the PI for my nutrition lab received funding from a Canadian agricultural company for a study on Canola oil. When the test results of the study were investigated (which I don't exactly recall), they were not in favour of Canola oil. The PI therefore "voluntarily" decided not to publish the results. I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again. My point is that a lot of research conducted today is funded by ulterior motives, be it political, private interest, or a company like Monsanto. I fully expected a company like Monsanto to be engaged in this behaviour. The days of pure/basic research are dead, especially with funding from the public sector drying up. edit: oops i meant to write principal investigator (PI)

devrandomguy 9y ago
> The days of pure/basic research are dead, especially with funding from the public sector drying up. I have been wondering, could pure research work well with a crowd-funding model? In addition to applying for a grant, the PI would post a similar or identical application to Kickstarter & co. Stretch goals could be used to commission media-rich presentations that are true to the research, rather than leaving the original scientist-oriented study to be interpreted by rushed journalists.
- Zigurd 9y ago
  You can bet that industry-friendly stealth-subsidized projects will come in to displace genuinely truth-seeking projects in a crowdfunding model. It would be more straightforward to condition public funding on publishing all results.
adam-p 9y ago
"PI" is principal investigator.
09bjb 9y ago
I agree with all of your points. Science costs money. Somehow, however, we've made incredible scientific progress over the last 650 years with Science and Industry tightly dependent on one another (Science on Industry to conduct new research, and Industry on Science to open up new possible products and markets). Unless we change something we'll get Industry stifling new knowledge (as in your examples) and stagnating as a result of its own actions. All that said...somehow it's worked fairly well for centuries, so I'm reluctant to accept heinous actions like these as the status quo, even if corporations can usually be counted on to act in their own short-term best interests.
- clord 9y ago
  > we've made incredible scientific progress over the last 650 years with Science and Industry tightly dependent on one another To be fair it hasn't all been rainbows and butterflies. There have been a lot of really bad problems caused by this unholy union. I'm not even sure it's net-better. The level of environmental destruction we've caused, combined with the difficulty of doing anything about said damage, could negate all of the benefits we've achieved.
- learc83 9y ago
  I think you're vastly underestimating the role publicly funded science (and science conducted and funded by private individuals not primarily concerned with commercial benefits) has played in that advancement.
tnorthcutt 9y ago
The PI therefore "voluntarily" decided not to publish the results. I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again. This isn't the first time I've heard of something like this, but holy shit. Those actions should produce a reaction of alarm and outrage, but I'm sure many of us read that and shake our heads, thinking "that's terrible" – but not being shocked at all. In a situation like that, is there a feasible way to seek "justice"? Does the organization (I assume a university?) overseeing the research lab have a policy & procedures in place to handle anonymous reporting of that behavior?
- rubatuga 9y ago
  It may be wrong to focus solely on my PI's ethics. This phenomenon is implicitly understood all throughout the research community, and by targeting her lab you wouldn't be really changing anything. Word would certainly get out that the lab is "uncooperative", and a company like Monsanto can simply call up the next struggling, underfunded lab who will be happy to comply and take the money. The only way to get "justice" is if you change the market so that the researchers have power, and this can only happen if researchers have enough stability and money to pick and choose research as they please. If you give them enough money, you hope that they make the right and ethical decisions (similar to why judges are paid so much).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- x0x0 9y ago
  The reasonable thing to do is stop expecting companies to pay for results that hurt them, and support public funding for these investigations. Trying to punish a PI who is just trying not to put him or herself, plus the lab scientists and employees, out of a job is counterproductive.
- candiodari 9y ago
  Why ? Parliament and lawyers aren't capable of running safety reviews, nor do they have the will or (it seems) the ability or budget to provide an organisation that can do it. So who then writes safety reviews ? Well, the same as for medicine : the company gets them written. Ideally by a somewhat neutral third party, but since they're paid by the guys who want things approved there's going to be problems here. Since the taxpayer won't pay for them, they are by necessity paid by the company wanting something reviewed. Those guys want these things approved and are paying the bills. This is very much working as intended. Want a better system ? It will be much more expensive, as you'll effectively have to hire medicine experts away from companies like Monsanto + provide them with infrastructure.
lomnakkus 9y ago
> I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again. Yeah, this is why is absolutely paramount that we should push for all research studies[1] to be disclosed to the public before actually conducting the research. For example, in the medical realm see http://policyaudit.alltrials.net/ http://policyaudit.alltrials.net/ [1] Or, rather, not take studies that haven't been pre-disclosed seriously. I have very little hope that this type of policy will become pervasive enough for all types of study, but medical research affects human lives so there's at least a little hope that it will become a government-mandated requirement for drugs that need approval.
- mmirate 9y ago
  What is to ensure that a study which is being "pre-disclosed" has not, in fact, already had the data collected and simply being withheld for the same amount of time that it took to collect?
- tstactplsignore 9y ago
  This just really doesn't make sense for a lot of research. Most science isn't this kind of "Does chemical X do Y?"- these kind of clinical trials and safety reviews are not really what most scientists are engaged in. There could be some centralized system (do you know that clinicaltrials.gov already exists and does this for pharmaceutical research?) for safety and efficacy experiments, but most science goes more like "let's figure out how the heck this thing works!" and are an investigation involving hundreds of constantly changing mini-experiments that'd be impossible and counterproductive to predict beforehand.
7sigma 9y ago
"The days of pure/basic research are dead, especially with funding from the public sector drying up." I take issue with that statement, there is still a lot of basic research done that is publicly funded or funded via organisations like the Wellcome trust. My wife is in cancer research and there is no way anyone can influence her results. I also know her colleagues and two of them are also members of the Royal Society, and same thing goes for them. With regards to privately funded research and applied science, yeah i do agree that there are serious issues but I think it also depends on the regulatory environment. As a counterexample, look at the recent study done in Europe that showed that neonics did have some harmful effects on bees in the wild. The research was paid for by Bayer and Syngenta and those results where published (Although Bayer and Syngenta disagreed with the conclusions, as one would expect). Forgot to say: I also agree with you that funding situation is still not great but we're not yet at the point where there is NO public funded research
wnevets 9y ago
>The PI therefore "voluntarily" decided not to publish the results. I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again. That just sounds awful. Why must we privatize everything?
eurticket 9y ago
Any possibility of a functional fund pool that these labs all are able to pick at anonymously to conduct these type of reviews— of course these companies that require Safety Regulations put money into.

devrandomguy 9y ago

> The days of pure/basic research are dead, especially with funding from the public sector drying up. I have been wondering, could pure research work well with a crowd-funding model? In addition to applying for a grant, the PI would post a similar or identical application to Kickstarter & co. Stretch goals could be used to commission media-rich presentations that are true to the research, rather than leaving the original scientist-oriented study to be interpreted by rushed journalists.

Zigurd 9y ago
You can bet that industry-friendly stealth-subsidized projects will come in to displace genuinely truth-seeking projects in a crowdfunding model. It would be more straightforward to condition public funding on publishing all results.

adam-p 9y ago

"PI" is principal investigator.

09bjb 9y ago

I agree with all of your points. Science costs money. Somehow, however, we've made incredible scientific progress over the last 650 years with Science and Industry tightly dependent on one another (Science on Industry to conduct new research, and Industry on Science to open up new possible products and markets). Unless we change something we'll get Industry stifling new knowledge (as in your examples) and stagnating as a result of its own actions. All that said...somehow it's worked fairly well for centuries, so I'm reluctant to accept heinous actions like these as the status quo, even if corporations can usually be counted on to act in their own short-term best interests.

clord 9y ago
> we've made incredible scientific progress over the last 650 years with Science and Industry tightly dependent on one another To be fair it hasn't all been rainbows and butterflies. There have been a lot of really bad problems caused by this unholy union. I'm not even sure it's net-better. The level of environmental destruction we've caused, combined with the difficulty of doing anything about said damage, could negate all of the benefits we've achieved.
learc83 9y ago
I think you're vastly underestimating the role publicly funded science (and science conducted and funded by private individuals not primarily concerned with commercial benefits) has played in that advancement.

tnorthcutt 9y ago

The PI therefore "voluntarily" decided not to publish the results. I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again. This isn't the first time I've heard of something like this, but holy shit. Those actions should produce a reaction of alarm and outrage, but I'm sure many of us read that and shake our heads, thinking "that's terrible" – but not being shocked at all. In a situation like that, is there a feasible way to seek "justice"? Does the organization (I assume a university?) overseeing the research lab have a policy & procedures in place to handle anonymous reporting of that behavior?

rubatuga 9y ago
It may be wrong to focus solely on my PI's ethics. This phenomenon is implicitly understood all throughout the research community, and by targeting her lab you wouldn't be really changing anything. Word would certainly get out that the lab is "uncooperative", and a company like Monsanto can simply call up the next struggling, underfunded lab who will be happy to comply and take the money. The only way to get "justice" is if you change the market so that the researchers have power, and this can only happen if researchers have enough stability and money to pick and choose research as they please. If you give them enough money, you hope that they make the right and ethical decisions (similar to why judges are paid so much).
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
x0x0 9y ago
The reasonable thing to do is stop expecting companies to pay for results that hurt them, and support public funding for these investigations. Trying to punish a PI who is just trying not to put him or herself, plus the lab scientists and employees, out of a job is counterproductive.
candiodari 9y ago
Why ? Parliament and lawyers aren't capable of running safety reviews, nor do they have the will or (it seems) the ability or budget to provide an organisation that can do it. So who then writes safety reviews ? Well, the same as for medicine : the company gets them written. Ideally by a somewhat neutral third party, but since they're paid by the guys who want things approved there's going to be problems here. Since the taxpayer won't pay for them, they are by necessity paid by the company wanting something reviewed. Those guys want these things approved and are paying the bills. This is very much working as intended. Want a better system ? It will be much more expensive, as you'll effectively have to hire medicine experts away from companies like Monsanto + provide them with infrastructure.

lomnakkus 9y ago

> I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again. Yeah, this is why is absolutely paramount that we should push for all research studies[1] to be disclosed to the public before actually conducting the research. For example, in the medical realm see http://policyaudit.alltrials.net/ http://policyaudit.alltrials.net/ [1] Or, rather, not take studies that haven't been pre-disclosed seriously. I have very little hope that this type of policy will become pervasive enough for all types of study, but medical research affects human lives so there's at least a little hope that it will become a government-mandated requirement for drugs that need approval.

mmirate 9y ago
What is to ensure that a study which is being "pre-disclosed" has not, in fact, already had the data collected and simply being withheld for the same amount of time that it took to collect?
tstactplsignore 9y ago
This just really doesn't make sense for a lot of research. Most science isn't this kind of "Does chemical X do Y?"- these kind of clinical trials and safety reviews are not really what most scientists are engaged in. There could be some centralized system (do you know that clinicaltrials.gov already exists and does this for pharmaceutical research?) for safety and efficacy experiments, but most science goes more like "let's figure out how the heck this thing works!" and are an investigation involving hundreds of constantly changing mini-experiments that'd be impossible and counterproductive to predict beforehand.

7sigma 9y ago

"The days of pure/basic research are dead, especially with funding from the public sector drying up." I take issue with that statement, there is still a lot of basic research done that is publicly funded or funded via organisations like the Wellcome trust. My wife is in cancer research and there is no way anyone can influence her results. I also know her colleagues and two of them are also members of the Royal Society, and same thing goes for them. With regards to privately funded research and applied science, yeah i do agree that there are serious issues but I think it also depends on the regulatory environment. As a counterexample, look at the recent study done in Europe that showed that neonics did have some harmful effects on bees in the wild. The research was paid for by Bayer and Syngenta and those results where published (Although Bayer and Syngenta disagreed with the conclusions, as one would expect). Forgot to say: I also agree with you that funding situation is still not great but we're not yet at the point where there is NO public funded research

wnevets 9y ago

>The PI therefore "voluntarily" decided not to publish the results. I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again. That just sounds awful. Why must we privatize everything?

eurticket 9y ago

Any possibility of a functional fund pool that these labs all are able to pick at anonymously to conduct these type of reviews— of course these companies that require Safety Regulations put money into.