Uncoupling Scientific Progress From Human Progress: Part III. The Loss of Checks and Balances: “Bayhing for blood or Doling out cash?”

Mike Magee The results of the Bayh-Dole Act were dramatic, at least for health care institutions. While 380 patents were granted to them in 1980, that number soared to 3088 by 2009. Those patents, now under the control of individual scientists and their parent academic institutions, were subsequently licensed to corporations for the development of […]

Uncoupling Scientific Progress From Human Progress -The Loss of Checks and Balances: Part II – The Bayh-Dole Act

The Bayh-Dole Act from Nature.com Mike Magee Since Vannevar Bush presented his “Science the Endless Frontier” to President Truman, and the President had insisted on strong government control of federally sponsored research, there had been a prohibition on private ownership of patents that emerged from research discoveries supported by federal grant dollars.(1) As the thinking […]

Uncoupling Scientific Progress From Human Progress: How Did We Arrive At This Place? A Three Part Series.

Source: studentblogs.med.ed.ac.uk Mike Magee A fundamental principle in human physiology and homeostasis is the negative feedback loop. When the body produces too much of something, a negative signal is transmitted back to the source which limits further production until peripheral over-production declines. These systems of checks and balances have evolved over the millennia to protect us […]

A Sweet Deal: NIH Nutrition Research Task Force

Mike Magee “NIH Charts a Path for Nutrition Science” read the JAMA release offering on-air interviews with Griffin P. Rodgers, MD, chair of the new NIH Nutrition Research Task Force. “We hope that the strategic planning … encourages scientists to conduct innovative and really ground-changing studies in nutrition as they relate to health,” was the […]

Sloppy Prescribing and “Unlearned Intermediary” Law

Movantik Ad for OID Mike Magee The term “learned intermediary” is a legal term, first used in 1966, and defined by the Fifth Circuit Court as follows: “Prescription drugs are likely to be complex medicines, esoteric in formula and varied in effect. As a medical expert, the prescribing physician can take into account the propensities […]