And "science" hasn't yet recovered............

The commercialization of molecular biology is the most stunning ethical event in history of science, and it happened with astonishing speed.  For four hundred years since Galileo, science has always proceeded as a free and open inquiry into the workings of nature.  Scientists have always ignored national boundaries, holding themselves above the transitory concerns of politics and even wars.  Scientists have always rebelled against secrecy in research, and have even frowned on the idea of patenting their discoveries, seeing themselves as working to the benefit of all mankind.  And for many generations, the discoveries of scientists did indeed have a peculiarly selfless quality.
     When, in 1953, two young researchers in England, James Watson and Francis Crick, deciphered the structure of DNA, their work was hailed as a triumph of the human spirit, of the centuries-old quest to understand the universe in a scientific way.  It was confidently expected that their discovery would be selflessly extended to the greater benefit of mankind.
     Yet that did not happen.   Thirty years later, nearly all of Watson and Crick's scientific colleagues were engaged in another sort of enterprise entirely.  Research in molecular genetics had become a vast, multibillion-dollar commercial undertaking, and its origins can be traced not to 1953 but to April 1976.
     That was the date of a now famous meeting, in which Robert Swanson, a venture capitalist, approached Herbert Boyer, a biochemist at the University of California.  The two men agreed to found a commercial company to exploit Boyer's gene-splicing techniques.  Their new company, Genentech, quickly became one of the largest and most successful of the genetic engineering start-ups.
      Suddenly it seemed as if everyone wanted to become rich.  New companies were announced almost weekly, and scientists flocked to exploit genetic research.  By 1986, at least 362 scientists, including 64 in the National Academy, sat on advisory boards of biotech firms.  The number of those who held equity positions or consultancies was several times greater.
      It is necessary to emphasize how significant this shift in attitude actually was.  In the past, pure scientists took a snobbish view of business.  They saw the pursuit of money as intellectually uninteresting, suited only to shopkeepers.   And to do research for industry, even at the prestigious Bell or IBM labs, was only for those who couldn't get a university appointment.   Thus the attitude of pure science was fundamentally critical toward the work of applied scientists, and to industry in general.  Their long-standing antagonism kept university scientists free of contaminating industry ties, and wherever debate arose about technological matters, disinterested scientists were available to discuss the issues at the highest levels.
      But that is no longer true.   There are very few molecular biologists and very few research institutions without commercial affiliations.  The old days are gone.  Genetic research continues, at a more furious pace than ever.  But it is done in secret, and in haste, and for profit.

-Michael Crichton, from the Introduction to his 1990 book, Jurassic Park