SEVEN DAYS: The news in brief

Jana Lasser, a doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and SelfOrganization in Göttingen, Germany, and spokesperson for PhDnet, says that the group had been crafting recommendations for the treatment of PhD researchers, but work intensified after press reports earlier this year detailed allegations of bullying against a Max Planck institute director. In a 16 August article in The New England Journal of Medicine, the directors of the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wrote that improved understanding of diseases, gene-delivery methods and safety risks mean that the FDA should be able to regulate gene therapies as they would any other treatment. Last month, it was revealed that vaccine maker Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology, in Jilin province, had faked production data for several batches of rabies vaccine; it had also violated standards in making about 250,000 doses of a vaccine that protects against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, potentially making the doses ineffective.