NIH Bans Consulting

National Institutes of Health Director Elias A. Zerhouni announced stringent new ethics regulations for the agency at a press conference on Feb. 1. The regulations address conflict-of-interest issues that have been the focus of both congressional and NIH investigations since December 2003.

The rules ban all NIH employees from participating in paid or unpaid outside activities--including consulting and advisory board service--with drug or biotech companies, health care providers, health insurers, trade and professional associations, and higher education/research institutions that receive agency grants.

With respect to financial holdings, the rules prohibit senior-level employees from holding stock in drug, biotech, or related companies except as part of a diversified mutual fund. All other employees may own up to $15,000 worth of stock in such companies. A cap of $200 is placed on awards that employees can receive, with the exception of significant scientific awards such as the Nobel Prize.

"This is a sweeping set of ethics regulations," Zerhouni said. He noted that the rules draw a "bright line" about acceptable relationships, adding that this line was necessary to be able to "provide public health information to the public without the taint of conflict."

Reaction to the new rules has been strong. National Cancer Institute intramural researcher Dean H. Hamer tells C&EN that he and his colleagues are furious that the actions of a few "bad apples" are resulting in the loss of opportunities for NIH scientists to undertake potentially useful interactions with industry.

However, Hamer says, employees are also "relieved that the leadership at NIH has finally taken strong action to restore confidence in our institution."

The new ethics rules went into effect last week and supplant a proposed one-year moratorium on outside consulting that Zerhouni had previously announced (C&EN, Oct. 4, 2004, page 7).