Kate catches doctors surrendering to their inner capitalist and accepting the practice of giving project funders -- often pharmaceutical companies -- full control over their research projects. That means control over design, what's studied, how the material is presented...the whole deal. Why is this so attractive in such a service-oriented profession? She explains:
researchers at medical schools are often responsible for coming up with their own project funding after their first couple years on staff. Many will turn to pharmaceutical comapanies and other for-profit entities to foot the bill. This just perpetuates the conflict of interest cycle, from the researcher's petri dish to the doctor's prescription pad -- Big Pharma has their hand in all of it.
So there's a funding gap in research, researchers need funding to do their job, and Big Pharma altruistically steps into the void, with a few little sub-clauses. Another win for the magical market, I guess.
