Lactnetters, I have been following the discussion of Lucas' research with some interest. I have not read the article carefully yet, so I won't comment on it, but it has raised an issue in my mind that I thought to brainstorm with you all. We all know in our hearts that research that is sponsored by a company with finanacial interest in the results is somehow tainted. It raises serious ethical questions. We also know that there is more and more private money going into research. This issue has come up in a number of other areas like tobacco money in lung cancer research and more recently, and research on AIDS drugs (although this one is a little more complicated, I admit) Here's my question. How would one design a study to determine whether the findings of these "tainted" studies really are not as good as studies paid for by more objective sponsors, like the government? I think that before we take further steps that question has to be addressed. I'm not sure if this is too far afield to discuss on lactnet, if so, please respond to me privately and I'll post a summary of comments, if people are intersted. Enjoy the first day of spring. We had a crocus sighting here in Boston yesterday (ours are still buried under my son's snow fort!) Naomi Bar-Yam *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html