C&EN: TODAY'S HEADLINES - Tauzin Poses More Ethics Questions for NIH

December 15, 2003
Volume 81, Number 50
CENEAR 81 50 p. 10
ISSN 0009-2347

ETHICS

Tauzin Poses More Ethics Questions for NIH

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Tauzin
COURTESY OF W.J. TAUZIN

The practice of allowing NIH scientists to serve as paid consultants for drug companies that receive NIH funding and participate in agency studies is drawing concern from the House Energy & Commerce Committee. The concern comes in the midst of an investigation of NIH by the committee into payments made to NIH scientists in the form of lecture awards from outsiders doing business with the health research agency.

In a letter to NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni on Dec. 8, Committee Chairman W. J. (Billy) Tauzin (R-La.) and Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee Chairman James C. Greenwood (R-Pa.) requested copies of NIH memos and letters related to this practice, as well as a list of approved consulting agreements and other records. "The receipt of outside payments, even though approved, raises concerns about whether the integrity of NIH clinical research has been affected and whether the honor system used by NIH to enforce recusals signed by NIH scientists and other conflict-of-interest rules [have] been violated," the letter says.

In response to the congressional concerns, Zerhouni has ordered an immediate review of outside consulting agreements made within the past five years. He has also set up a blue-ribbon advisory committee to look at systematic solutions to this problem.

The committee's letter was prompted by a Dec. 7 Los Angeles Times article that cited several situations where NIH scientists received consulting fees and stock options from drug companies for work that might be a conflict of interest.

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