Conflict-of-interest inquiry may reopen at NIH

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators are reviewing the activities of 103 scientists who may have had improper links to pharmaceutical companies while they were employed at the National Institutes of Health, apparently resurrecting a conflict-of-interest inquiry that many in the agency thought was closed.

In a letter sent to several members of Congress on March 23 and made public Friday, Daniel Levinson, inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, said his office is looking into the cases "to determine whether investigation is warranted."

Levinson also wrote that his office is reviewing whether NIH is adequately monitoring potential conflicts of interest among its thousands of grant recipients — typically university researchers.

Members of Congress and watchdog groups have long called for such a review, noting that conflict-of-interest policies at universities are generally more lenient than those at NIH. The concern, critics say, is that federal grant money not go to scientists who may be predisposed to get results that favor their drug company sponsors.

Scientific and academic organizations counter that adequate safeguards are already in place and fear that many of the nation's best scientists would leave the federally funded research enterprise if options for outside income were lost.

NIH officials had already looked into the 103 cases of possible conflict of interest in 2004, after a congressional inquiry suggested that scores of researchers may have taken drug industry money without approval. As a result of that investigation, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni in 2005 banned all such consulting by NIH employees.

Agency investigators concluded that about half of those who were suspected of wrongdoing and who were still employed at NIH (and thus available for questioning) had indeed violated policies, including 10 who the agency concluded may have violated federal law.

NIH referred only those 10 cases to the HHS Office of Inspector General, which referred two to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. One resulted in a conviction for criminal conflict of interest; the other is still pending.

With new ethics policies in place and the 2008 budget fight starting, many in the agency had hoped that the worst was behind them. But the Levinson letter suggests not.