My guess is that a big factor is concern about unmonitored clinical trials on Russians by foreign companies (a la the situation in Africa described in the book/movie “The Constant Gardener“). However, it seems that officials (not just in Russia) often mix genuine concerns with financial considerations, so I don’t exclude the possibility that someone looked around and said, “Hey, wait a minute – these Western companies are exploiting Russia’s natural resources [in this case, the people]. Why shouldn’t the Russian government get first crack at exploiting these resources?”

That would be in line with the approach in the energy sector.

So, perhaps clinical trials will be resurrected, but with mandatory involvement by a government-championed intermediary and perhaps with the analysis conducted in labs in Russia – if something like this is the goal, we can see it as another instance of the Russian gov’t pursuing goals which could be seen as legitimate and in the “national interest”, but doing so using clumsy means.

Or who knows, maybe it is just a screw-up or some kind of overstepping in an attempt to combat illegal organ trafficking. Watching what happens in Russia and pontificating on it is never boring, that’s for sure.

You could do it, maybe, with highly homogeneous groups like Germanic Icelanders, because they have been genetically isolated for quite a while. But, I think even that’s ridiculous.

I agree with Cyrill, I think it’s a classic case of bureaucratic SNAFU. I predict it’ll be reversed shortly once the presidential admin gets wind of it and one of the obviously smart guys there figures out that this is utterly stupid.

I have no basis for this, but after a few phone calls, that’s what the rumor mill is producing.