National Institutes of Health officials just wisely rejected a petition, supported by 51 congressmen, to exercise “march-in” rights to discourage drug “price-gouging.” The proposal didn’t merely violate the explicit intent of a decades-old statute — the Bayh-Dole Act — it also revealed the legislators’ ignorance of drug development and would have devastated medical innovation, while doing nothing to bring down drug costs.

NIH officials must continue to reject similarly misguided and politicized petitions. The future of American medicine depends on it.