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Comment by warmcat | Hacker News Reader

"In April, three researchers were also let go by the University of Texas’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in connection with an investigation into possible foreign attempts to take advantage of its federally funded research." This is the real reason why visas are getting denied. Why would you want to enjoy the fruits of living and working in America but benefit other countries (even if you once belonged there)?

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I must admit to some confusion about why federally-funded cancer research results aren’t available to everyone.

The issue isn't collaboration or information-sharing.

The researchers didn't disclose affiliations and violated non-disclosures. Those are pure ethics violations (and conflicts of interest) that undermine research integrity. If they're willing to lie there, what else are they willing to lie about?

Quote from another article:

> The reports say that the researchers failed to disclose international collaborators and that at least one confidential grant application was sent to a scientist in China in violation of federal policy, among other allegations. [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/health/md-anderson-chines...

Wait, they were fired for showing a grant application to a collaborator? This is something that happens all the time in academia - it's completely normal, regardless of what the rules state (assuming it's their own proposal, which is unclear from the article - as are all these vague accusations). Emory recently fired two tenured Chinese scientists, who are actually quite important in researching Huntington's disease, on similar accusations of hiding their collaborators. The thing is, in the Emory case, the accusations are patently absurd. The collaborators were listed on the papers, and a dean at Emory had approved the collaboration. It looks like the Trump administration is pressuring the NIH, which is pressuring universities, and the people at the bottom are taking the flak.

I can definitely imagine some grant applications with sensitive information in them.

It will only be available to everyone after it's patented and sold to a big pharma. All made possible by the great Bayh–Dole Act - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act

How does it work in the EU? Do they just give away without any patents?

Publicly-funded medical research at EU universities works exactly the same way - they patent it and sell the patents to big pharma.

Imagine getting funding in USA for research and sending the research and results back to China so they can patent it before. Who benefits then?

As opposed to a US spinoff company getting it and keeping all oversea profits offshore in Ireland etc. to avoid taxation?

That "loophole" was closed in 2017 by the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (GILTI/transition tax).

Everyone benefits, because information is now more freely flowing.

I don't care at all about information "theft".

If said research is developed and productized into something that works?

Then we all benefit, cancer victims most notably. Hence the public funding of basic research.

Sure....Chinese government gets the money by selling the medicine without investing in the research. That's cheating. And you really think cancer patients will get benefits without paying for an arm and leg?

Why do you think the US government funds basic research?

Are you under the impression the Chinese don't also fund basic research? Or that it's a quick hop from basic research to a marketable, approved drug?

And why is this all about who profits rather than curing cancer?

They are listed as paid full-time researchers in Chinese institutions. But xenophobia!

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