Does immigration hurt American science?

The US government is spending a lot of money training the next generation of PhDs so that the country can remain a leader in science. Yet each year, many American-born scientists are leaving the lab, perhaps because of the long hours, low salaries or low expectations of career advancement.  Read more

Good reason TB nervous

By now, you’ve all heard about Andrew Speaker, the man who brought extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis to full-blown US attention. The case is undeniably bizarre. Man has deadly infection, health officials try in vain to get him to stop flying, he puts hundreds of passengers at risk despite being on a so-called “no-fly” list, a customs official lets him in because he doesn’t look sick… oh, and most bizarrely of all, his father-in-law is a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specializing in, wait for it, TB. My first response was to think that the US was over-reacting.  Read more

Trouble in the HIV field

When I went to the HIV vaccine meeting in Whistler last month, I heard some rather disturbing tales of people upset at the NIH. Some of the behind the scenes complaining I wrote about here. The rest became a news story about conflicts between HIV scientists and the NIH that runs in our May issue.  Read more