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| US Right Stymie Sensitive Medical Research (Andrew Jack) |
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| Written by Andrew Jack | |
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 AIDS Victim Being Prepared for Burial November 18 2008 02:34-Important US research to reduce HIV infection may have been prevented in recent years because scientists have censored their funding requests in response to political controversy, according to a study published on Tuesday.
Writing in PLoS Medicine, the academic journal, Joanna Kempner from Rutgers University identified a “chilling effect” on researchers seeking grants from the government-backed National Institutes of Health after their work was questioned by Republican lawmakers and Christian groups.
Most researchers who “gamed” the system by removing sensitive words
in their grant applications – sometimes encouraged by sympathetic
grants officers in the NIH – claimed any changes they made were
cosmetic. But some argued that the consequence was to change
the focus of their research, and still more warned that obscuring the
contents of their work made it more difficult for others to
subsequently identify and use their findings in database searches. The findings suggest politics influence scientists’ willingness to conduct research, and raise warnings at a time of continued sensitivity over medical research topics from sexual behaviour to stem cells. Among 82 researchers polled by Ms Kempner, who had received money from the NIH, almost a quarter had dropped or reframed studies around sexual behaviour they judged to be politically sensitive, and four had made career changes and left academia as a result of the controversy. more
Read More: Financial Times
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