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Science, business a bad mix at NIH
Sunday, August 07, 2005
It's depressing news.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health researching the effects
of antidepressants may be working at the same time for a company that
makes antidepressants. And there is a good chance that no one would
even know about it.

There may be many serious ethical problems inside the NIH. There may,
instead, be an isolated number of conflicts of interest at the agency.
The immediate problem, however, is clear: Reporting requirements at NIH
are so lax that there is no way to gauge the scope of the problems
there.

When NIH scientists want to do outside work for a drug company - or
some other group or institution - they must first fill out a
questionnaire, professedly so that potential conflicts of interest can
be headed off. But the survey provides such limited information, an
inspection has found, that there is no way to know whether there might
actually be a conflict of interest.

A system so clearly broken cannot stand.

There are some 5,000 researchers at the National Institutes of Health.
And there is every reason to believe that the great majority of them
are honorable and forthright, doing work that is important to the
well-being of the citizens of this nation.

But if even a small percentage of them are moonlighting in areas with
potential conflicts of interest, that casts a pall over the entire
agency. A recent study by the inspector general of the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services has only added to earlier reports of
unhealthy doings at the National Institutes of Health. Some scientists
are working in areas related to their research. Others own stock in
companies that could be affected by their research. And there is much
that is unknown, many potential conflicts that are not even on anyone's
radar.

What's needed foremost is transparency. When researchers at the
National Institutes of Health issue a report, the citizens have a right
to expect that the findings represent the best science of the day. But
as things stand now, the citizens have reason to suspect that the
findings may well represent the interests of some particular business.

That perception will not change until the culture inside the National
Institutes of Health is changed.

*******

Time to shut down the NIH and start from scratch. Fire the bastards.
Strip them of their professional standing. Burn them at the stake. The
bastards are f**king with the basic trust we have and must have in the
biological sciences.

TC