Management Woes Cited At NIEHS

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) suffers from management problems in its ethics and grants program, according to a report from NIH. On April 9, NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni sent the report to Congress, which had asked for the review of NIEHS, one of NIH's 27 institutes and centers. Management of NIEHS, located in Research Triangle Park, N.C., has been a lightening rod for congressional scrutiny since 2005, when David A. Schwartz took over as director. The embattled Schwartz left the institute in February after stepping down from his post in August 2007 amid probes by Congress and the Department of Health & Human Services (C&EN, Feb. 18, page 26). The NIH review of management at NIEHS found that the institute's ethics program was not operating effectively. The review also found that NIEHS strayed from NIH's policy to properly document its decisions to fund grants that reviewers ranked lower in scientific merit while requests that were higher ranked remained unfunded. Citing allegations that Schwartz helped select NIEHS grant recipients outside the ranking process, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the entire NIH grant process.