Quick Takes: Legal Support for Pot Research, 17% Increase in Med School Enrollments Seen by 2012, Phoenix Attacks NYT Article, Push for Research Ethics in Academic Medicine, Cartoon Furor Resurfaces, Hendrix Bars Sudan Stocks

You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.

<![CDATA[

An administrative law judge recommended Monday that a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst be permitted to grow marijuana for research purposes, The Boston Globe reported. While the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration could reverse the ruling, it is seen as an advance for research involving the drug, which has been limited by severe restrictions on when pot can be grown for research.
Medical school enrollments in the United States are projected to increase 17 percent by 2012, to nearly 19,300, according to data released by the Association of American Medical Colleges. The association has called for a 30 percent increase in enrollments to avoid physician shortages.
An article on Sunday in The New York Times reviewing problems at the University of Phoenix has been much blogged about (and praised) by many academics. Phoenix issued a response Monday, calling the piece "ridden with factual errors and misrepresentations." For example, the Phoenix response said that the university's graduation rates is in the 50-60 percent rate typical of many public universities, not the 16 percent cited by the Times, which Phoenix said came from only a small cohort.
The Prescription Project, which is supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, on Monday announced a new campaign against drug-related conflicts of interest in academic medicine. A publicity campaign and research efforts will seek to focus attention on the impact of academic medical centers receiving free products from the pharmaceutical industry.
The furor over the infamous Danish cartoons of Muhammad has returned -- this time at the University of Cambridge, in Britain, where a student editor is in hiding after he published the cartoon in a satire issue on religion, The Guardian reported. The satire has led to a flood of criticism, not only for the cartoons, but for headlines such as "Ayatollah Rethinks Stance on Misunderstood Rushdie." Cambridge officials are investigating the situation and have removed the student editor from his housing and placed him elsewhere, for his own safety.
Hendrix College's board has voted to bar the college from holding stocks in companies that support the government of Sudan in the genocide taking place in Darfur. The college does not have any direct investments in such companies, but has ordered a study of whether any pooled investment funds may contain such holdings, so they can be sold. The college is the first in Arkansas to adopt this stance on Darfur.