- © 2007 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
Ratatouille: Lab rats. Peons. Minions. Grad students. Postdocs. The time has come to finally eliminate the interchangeability of such labels within British universities, says the UK Council for Science and Technology. Calling for a major overhaul of the way universities treat “lost souls” otherwise known as young researchers, the nation's chief science advisory body has urged such radical reforms as wider use of research fellowships and setting aside more monies at research councils for fellowship programs to prevent the next generation of scientists from having to first serve as slave labour for the ruling research gerontocracy. “Giving an early-career researcher the opportunity to apply for even small sums of funding at an early stage gives them valuable experience and greater control over the research they are undertaking,” the council said.
Trial halted: Drug giant Bayer Inc. last month moved to suspend worldwide marketing of the drug aprotinin (Trasylol) until the final results of a Canadian trial are compiled and evaluated. The multi-year, multi-centre clinical trial weighing aprotinin's merits against 2 antifibrinolytic drugs in preventing bleeding during bypass surgery was suspended in October, prompting the US Food and Drug Adminstration to announce that is now weighing whether to remove the drug from market or require additional warnings on its label. The trial's Data Safety Monitoring Board shut down the study after preliminary findings indicated that patients given Trasylol had a 2% higher risk of dying compared with those given epsilon-aminocaproic acid and tranexamic acid. Co-chaired by CMAJ Editor-in-Chief Dr. Paul Hébert and Ottawa Health Research Institute Senior Scientist Dean Fergusson, the study's full name is “Blood Conservation using Antifibrinolytics: A Randomized Trial in High-Risk Cardiac Surgery Patients.”