Ethical culture in Chinese biomedical research

The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting piece on ethics in current Chinese medical research. The most valuable insight is the authors' recognition that ethical problems -- in China or elsewhere -- do not stem primarily from the bad character of individual scientists, but rather problematic structural factors within local scientific practice. In the case of Chinese science, the problems mainly arise from the strong incentives tied to scientific success, and the weakness of formal mechanisms to deal with the scientific misconduct that such incentives inevitably encourage.