Thank you for your editorial of June 30.1 I am one of those research technicians you speak of, having gotten into the business 30 years ago, a refugee from a still very hostile climate in grad school (for women) with no clear job prospects at the other end and college debts.
In my first years I was trained and abused by the best: the older faculty all had worked with Nobel laureates and two of the younger ones got the prize themselves.
Since then, I have seen bad science that I couldn't fix, but saved an awful lot of embarrassment for others, and currently almost single-handedly saved a program project. I've fought battles over data interpretation and ethics. I've got a new technique that will help neuroscience research greatly when it gets published. And I have trained more students, residents, and technicians than I can remember.
What I have left ...
