SOME years ago the Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg remarked to me that “those who do not support medical research will have the blood of those who die on their hands”. I was left wondering if he was right about that. Is a legislator or member of parliament who supports an increased education budget at the expense of medical research to be held responsible for avoidable deaths? I puzzled over that question.
I was reminded of this when debates began breaking out in the 1990s on a variety of research problems. Critics of strict regulation of research involving human subjects complained…
