We want our graft!

If Congress and top politicians can be on the take, why not scientists?

National Institutes of Health director Elias Zerhouni stood before hundreds of NIH employees Wednesday to explain why it had become necessary for him to impose, in his words, "drastic" restrictions on stock ownership and other forms of outside income, which took effect yesterday for agency employees.

"What I'm asking you to do is hold your fire until you hear the details," he told the crowd assembled in an auditorium on the agency's campus in suburban Bethesda, Md.

They held.

And when he was done, they let him have it.
  Newsday article

These positions should be well-funded, good-paying, with high benefits. I think that is only due a federal employee. And I do not think they should be allowed to hold stock in companies that benefit from their research. Invest in something else, folks. Or get a job in the private sector.

Of course that's in an uncorrupt world, where the federal agencies are actually independent, honorable and uncorrupt themselves. So....let's get back to reality.....