Having Their Say

ETHICS

As NIH moves forward with policies to address concerns about employee conflicts of interest, many intramural scientists are taking issue with these actions. The scientists are upset because they believe that they were not given an opportunity to provide input to agency officials while these officials developed policies directly affecting staff scientists.

NIH Deputy Director Raynard S. Kington discussed the situation at a meeting of the agency's Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) on Dec. 3. He noted that he and NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni had met with a large group of concerned intramural scientists a couple of days prior to the ACD meeting.

"We recognized that we didn't do as good of a job as we should have at integrating intramural scientists into the policy-making process," Kington said. He told the committee that a working group is being set up with these scientists to allow them additional input. The date of the meeting was not available at press time, but it is expected to be this month.

This action comes a month after a group of more than 170 staff scientists sent a letter to Zerhouni protesting the agency's proposed one-year moratorium on all outside consulting by NIH employees (C&EN, Oct. 4, page 7). This proposed policy has to be approved by the Office of Government Ethics before it goes into effect--an action that is expected to take place in the next few weeks, according to Kington.

"In all fairness, this has been a fast-moving train, and we have been trying to do what is best for the agency and the broader scientific community," Kington explained. "We can do a better job, and we will do a better job."