Each year, amidst the technological breakthroughs and pioneering research studies that emerge from the scientific community, a few bad eggs warrant headlines of their own. Below is The Scientist’s roundup of some of the most scandalous happenings in the life science over the past 12 months.
FLICKR, MARK TAYLOR, ALEX HANSONScience policy has been one of the biggest stories all year, so much so that we’ve dedicated an entire post just to this topic. Among the developments were a few personnel kerfuffles. In February, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was confirmed by the Senate. Ever since his nomination the previous November, Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon and congressman (R-GA), was criticized for alleged conflicts of interest, his vocal opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and his proposed changes to the Medicare and Medicaid programs. But it wasn’t until this fall that the new Secretary’s trouble escalated.
Following a report by Politico that Price had used taxpayer dollars to charter private planes, he announced his resignation. Following a brief stint by interim secretary Don Wright, Eric Hargan, a lawyer from Chicago who previously served as deputy secretary of HHS, now leads the department, which oversees the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Meanwhile, another arm of the government, the US Department of ...
