Over the weekend, a reader wrote into DrugMonkey and PhysioProf's blog about having received a Freedom of Information Act request from an anonymous physician at another research university for a recently-funded grant. The reader writes that the grant includes unpublished data and the lab's research plan and that after trying to work out a confidentiality agreement with the petitioner, the reader's university hired a lawyer. "Imagine being forced to share your unpublished data and research plan with an anonymous colleague when you wrote the grant with the understanding it would stay confidential!" the reader writes. Commenters to the blog wonder if any aspects of the grant would be able to be redacted to protect trade secrets or the unpublished data.
Toward the bottom of the comments, the original reader updates the post to say that the request was rescinded, though the discussion carries on.