New rules are coming for sanitizing conflicts of interest in research financed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), dispenser of the government's biggest budget for civilian science, some $31 billion this year. The conflicted need not fear. The draft rules, soon to be made final, continue the NIH's longtime practice of trust but don't…

Librarians and scholars who seek to counter the rampant commercialism and consolidation that endanger equal and affordable access to knowledge can learn from the recent successful effort to pass health-care reform. Organizations with a commanding presence in an industry naturally seek to institutionalize their indispensability. They finance…