Legislators applaud NIH's stricter ethics rules

Members of Congress who investigated and criticized ethical conflicts involving government scientists Tuesday applauded new rules restricting the relationships between scientists and biomedical companies.

The new ethics and disclosure policy, announced earlier Tuesday by National Institutes of Health Director Elias Zerhouni, is likely to put off plans by a handful of lawmakers to introduce legislation aimed at ending scientists' conflicts of interest.

Several congressional panels had warned NIH to rewrite its ethics rules following reports that government scientists had collected large consulting fees from biomedical companies and that those relationships often went unnoticed and might have affected NIH decisions, with the threat that Congress would step in if the agency failed to act.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee had investigated the arrangements between NIH workers and biomedical and drug companies, holding hearings last summer.

Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, Tuesday called the new policy "a step that is both difficult and necessary," and said he hoped the rules would eliminate problems his committee uncovered.

Those problems included a "substantial number" of scientists engaged in private consultancy without notice or approval by NIH.

"NIH must remain a place where the nation's top researchers have the freedom, equipment and encouragement to do their best work ... and it must be a place where the trust of the public is earned and warranted," Barton said. "Inquiries have sometimes shown that might not be the case."

House Government Reform ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., agreed, saying the new ethics policy was needed to protect the independence of government science. "I am satisfied with the policy," he said.

The new rules ban NIH scientists from taking paid consultant work from biomedical companies and forbid them from holding stock in such companies. A 1995 rule change at NIH lifted limits on the amount NIH scientists could earn from outside sources and removed the ban on payment in the form of stocks or stock options.

When Zerhouni appeared before congressional committees last year, he said rule changes were under way to address serious problems, but said many consulting arrangements helped companies translate government research into medical products.

Scientists still will be allowed to teach courses, write and give lectures.

"Nothing is more important to me than preserving the trust of the public in NIH," Zerhouni said Tuesday.