The rules are being issued after disclosures that scientists at the institutes leveraged their positions to land lucrative consulting contracts that seemed to conflict with their official duties or at least overlap with them. Those contracts caused some critics to worry that research by the agency could be tainted.
An investigation by the agency concluded that 44 of its 1,200 senior scientists appeared to have violated rules governing consulting and that 9 might have violated criminal laws.
Under the final rules, the top 200 executives will be required to keep the value of their holdings in any single drug company below $15,000. Some 6,000 other employees will have to submit for review their holdings in such companies. If the holdings are determined to conflict with official responsibilities, the employees will be asked to sell these shares, officials said.
Agency scientists will also be allowed to hold fiduciary positions in medical societies as part of their lives outside the agency, a practice that the earlier proposed rules would have banned.
"These rules by no means end the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on N.I.H. employees," said Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, director of the health research group at Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group.
Dr. Wolfe noted that the new rules let employees deliver medical education lectures paid for by drug companies. Although no strings are supposed to be attached to the financing, Dr. Wolfe noted that scientists who disagreed with the positions of the drug industry were rarely invited to give such lectures.
The rules go into effect on Tuesday. Officials will have to divest their stock portfolios by Jan. 30. Dr. Zerhouni said he intended to re-examine the new rules in a year to make sure they have not had negative effects on the agency's ability to recruit top scientists.
Courtesy of the NY Times
Steve - To be continued...?
No comments:
Post a Comment