Moreover, the mutual trust among patients, clinicians, and researchers, which was so apparent after the 1950s, is in danger of forfeiture.4 This is due to suspicion that economic self-interest is disrupting medicine’s compact with patients, as exemplified by a number of high-profile ethical lapses in the protection of human research subjects and the involvement of physicians in the marketing activities of companies.
Illustrative is recent commentary in both the general5 and scientific6 press about slow progress in the decade after elucidation of the first human genome sequences. Despite the justified scientific excitement about using knowledge of the genome as a fundamental exploratory tool, unrealistic expectations for a quick route to clinical application have produced disappointment, especially among disease advocacy groups and companies. It is a reminder that with few exceptions, new scientific discoveries require 15 to 25 years for their application. This interval has not shortened in more than a century.7
