Student Research at Duke

In contrast to what a lot of my peers have said about the film And the Band Played On, I think it was wise for Ronald Reagan not to immediately get involved in the AIDS conflict. Research should be as free of government regulation as possible (as long as it is safe and “ethical”) to optimize discovery. Labs will naturally gravitate their interests towards research topics that are essential and critical for human health and proliferation because of the rewards (both monetary and honorary) they receive for doing this type of research. In the 1980s, labs began (or strategically should have begun) research on HIV because that was where the money was. It is easy to blame the president for everything that goes wrong in the country but I respect the government for not dictating to universities and industries what projects to work on and leaving it up to the institutions themselves.