Merrill Goozner's essay this week, "Protecting the View From Mt. NIH," is a good read.
He writes about NIH director Elias Zerhouni’s decision to ban agency scientists from having outside financial ties with drug, biotechnology and medical device companies -- a decision that "was actually rammed down the agency’s throat by the Office of Government Ethics and the determined reporting of David Willman in the Los Angeles Times."
But he chides some media coverage that stated "this will set back the commercialization of NIH knowledge...drive the best and brightest into the private sector and hamper industry by cutting off access to NIH’s cutting-edge science."
He concludes: "I hope our culture hasn’t become so crassly commercial that there are no longer young scientists who want to climb to the top of the mountain, or veteran scientists who won’t stick around to enjoy the view."