The Dish: Sampling Today’s News – January 22, 2008

A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services finds that the National Institute of Health is not doing enough to monitor conflicts of interest among its grant recipients. Federal law requires monitoring of potential conflicts, but the NIH leaves the responsibility to universities and institutions. The problems noted by HHS include lack of details in conflict-of-interest reports, as well as the lack of any database to properly track those conflicts. The NIH agreed that the reports be centrally located, but felt that requiring universities to file more detailed reports would unfairly shift responsibility to the NIH to monitor conflicts, something that agency officials believe institutions are better suited to do.

The Environmental Protection Agency pleaded the 5th on Friday, refusing to furnish an explanation for why it rejected California’s attempt to create stricter greenhouse gas laws. The EPA denied the state’s request for a federal waiver to enact its own stricter emissions rules, separate from those stipulated in the Clean Air Act. Documents provided as part of the congressional investigation into the EPA’s rejection had much of the information removed, and some pages were entirely blank. The EPA claimed that the omitted pages included details pertaining to internal debates and attorney-client discussions. The agency claimed its current litigation battle with California and 15 other states who sued the EPA in an effort to have the agency reassess its decision as another reason for withholding information.

The University of California at San Francisco issued an apology for controversial language in a recent research publication on drug-resistant staph infections, or MRSA. Last week, the university released a statement saying that gay men were more likely to become infected by a new strain of the staphylococcus bacteria. The study quickly gained media attention as gay rights groups criticized the report’s framing and as antigay groups used the results as fodder for their campaigns. The university apologized saying their press release “contained some information that could be interpreted as misleading.” The Center of Disease Control and Prevention, which financed the study, was quick to clarify that the disease is “not sexually transmitted or limited to a certain type of person” and is actually transmitted by skin-to-skin contact.

The most inexpensive way of reducing carbon emissions is to simply use less energy—or use it more efficiently. The Washington Post reports on efforts to use already-existing technologies to increase the efficiency of microelectronic devices. “We’re talking about the exact same principle as replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones,” said Andy Williams, vice president of the company On Semiconductor. “If our products were built into all consumer electronics—computers, flat-screen TVs, cellphones—we could save 800 million pounds of carbon emissions”, he said. But vested corporate interests and the risks inherent in new technology investments can stand in the way, which means that governments have a role to play in setting progressive standards and rewarding financial risk-takers.

Tags: Climate Change, Energy, medicine, NIH

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