WHAT?  REFORM IN ACADEMIA?  NO, TELL ME NO – AT 7:05 P.M. ET:  This story is potentially quite important as Harvard, for better or worse, influences the rest of the academic world.  This reform was long in coming.  From The New York Times:

The owner of two research hospitals affiliated with the Harvard Medical School has imposed restrictions on outside pay for two dozen senior officials who also sit on the boards of pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies. The limits come in the wake of growing criticism of the ties between industry and academia.

Medical experts say they believe the conflict-of-interest rules at the institution, Partners HealthCare, go further than those of any other academic medical center in restricting outside pay from drug companies. The rules, which became effective on Friday, impose limits specifically on outside directors who guide some of the nation’s biggest companies.

Senior officials at the two hospitals, Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals in Boston, must limit their pay for serving as outside directors to what the policy calls “a level befitting an academic role” — no more than $5,000 a day for actual work for the board. Some had been receiving more than $200,000 a year. Also, they may no longer accept stock.

This is just the beginning.  President Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation in 1961, warned about the corrupting effect of federal grants on science - with scientists working more to satisfy grant givers than to pursue discovery.  There is also a corrupting effect of any kind of outside money, and the new Harvard rules begin to address that.

Partners HealthCare is also forbidding speaker’s fees from drug companies for any employee, including nearly 8,000 with Harvard faculty appointments. Some other medical schools have taken similar actions in prohibiting faculty members from being paid by drug companies to speak about their products.

But no other academic medical centers have so restricted participation in boards of directors.

COMMENT:  Now it's time to expand the concern over corruption in the academic world.  What about professorships in Middle East studies that are financed by such noble democracies as Saudi Arabia?  What about restrictions on what students and faculty may or may not say, based on the demands of pressure groups?  There's a long list of reforms that are needed, but this step by Harvard is a very good one.

January 3, 2009