AR-News: US lawmakers grill Zerhouni

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From: primfocus at waste.org

US lawmakers grill Zerhouni

Congressional panel critical of NIH's report on consulting and conflicts of
interest | By Ted Agres

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Elias A. Zerhouni brought his
agency's "blue ribbon" panel report on conflict-of-interest policies to
Congress yesterday (May 12), only to face critical questions from both
Democratic and Republican lawmakers angry that officials had not been more
forthcoming about disclosing financial ties between government scientists
and industry.
"Some NIH scientists are either very close to the line or have crossed the
line" of ethics violations, charged Rep. James C. Greenwood (R-Pa.),
chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations. "If we are serious about upholding the highest ethical
standards at the NIH, then NIH scientists should not even be close to the
line."
Acknowledging that scientists must maintain "unimpeachable integrity,"
Zerhouni repeatedly promised to work closely with Congress to revamp NIH
conflict-of-interest procedures. While he said that he "would sleep so much
better" if all outside consulting activities were prohibited, Zerhouni
argued that "collaborations with the nongovernmental research community are
vital" to advance scientific research and translate discoveries into
therapies. "I plead with you to be open-minded about the academic activities
of our scientists," he told the lawmakers.
Implementing one of the recommendations contained in the
conflict-of-interest panel's report issued last week (May 6), Zerhouni
announced that he has asked the Office of Government Ethics to require an
additional 500 senior NIH officials in policymaking positions to file public
financial disclosure reports. This would be on top of about 93 senior
officials who had been instructed to do so earlier this year. Previously,
most of these officials had only been required to file confidential reports.
Zerhouni was accompanied yesterday by the blue ribbon panel's
cochairmen-Norman R. Augustine, retired chairman of Lockheed Martin, and
Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences. Subcommittee
members challenged many of the panel's findings and assumptions, including
whether consulting was really needed to recruit and retain top intramural
scientists and whether "bona fide" awards were really legitimate. "You have
to have faith that research grants are given by merit and not because
someone got a big honorarium," said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), chairman of
the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Barton, Greenwood, and other lawmakers criticized the NIH and the Department
of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for not supplying the subcommittee with
financial records about NIH consulting deals. "We have found NIH to be less
than cooperative, and that is going to change," Barton said. "You can go
back to your agency and tell all your directors and administrative officials
that they can cooperate, or we will make them cooperate coercively."
Greenwood said some drug companies had responded to subcommittee requests
for financial information and promised to press other companies to do so.
The subcommittee displayed slides revealing financial details of 12 NIH
scientists and officials whose outside consulting had collectively netted
them more than $2.5 million over the past decade. "How do we know these
people were focusing on their NIH work?" asked Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Col.).
The subcommittee also displayed slides showing consulting agreements between
seven companies and NIH scientists. Melissa Kitner-Triolo, a research
psychologist with the National Institute on Aging, was listed as receiving
more than $120,000 in fees and travel expenses from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals
since 2001. She told The Scientist yesterday that she was unaware her name
and finances had been displayed in Congress and declined further comment.
Subcommittee members also questioned Zerhouni about a Los Angeles Times
story claiming that the blue ribbon panel had uncovered permissive practices
that were not included in its final report. Zerhouni said the newspaper
story appeared to be based on E-mail exchanges and not official meeting
minutes, but promised to look into it further.
Also yesterday, DHHS published final guidelines on how medical schools,
institutional review boards, and researchers could protect people from
possible harm caused by financial conflicts of interest that may arise in
human research studies. The guidance document suggests-but does not
require-various mechanisms to manage such conflicts, including reducing and
disclosing the financial interest and separating responsibilities for
financial and research decision making.
Rep. Peter Deutsch (D-Fla.), the subcommittee's ranking minority member,
urged Zerhouni "to end the practice of NIH researchers taking anything of
value from drug or biotech companies." But Zerhouni said such an action
"would be bad for science, unfair to the employees, and ultimately hinder
our efforts to improve the nation's health."
Links for this article
Report of the National Institutes of Health: Blue Ribbon Panel on Conflict
of Interest Policies, May 5, 2004
http://www.nih.gov/about/ethics_COI_panelreport.pdf

T. Agres, "Top NIHers can't consult," The Scientist, May 7, 2004.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040507/03/

D. Willman, "NIH conflict findings left out," Los Angeles Times, May 12,
2004.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nih12may12
,1,3001166.story

Department of Health and Human Services, "Financial relationships and
interests in research involving human subjects: Guidance for human subject
protection," Federal Register, 69, May 12, 2004.
http://ohrp.osophs.dhhs.gov/humansubjects/finreltn/finalguid.pdf


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