A just-released NIH report observes, “Recently, concerns have been raised in the media and Congress that some employees at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have engaged in paid consulting arrangements with, or held shares in, biotechnology companies or other entities that could influence their work as government employees, thereby creating real or perceived conflicts of interest.”

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on this issue Wednesday and the chair of the NIH committee testified, “We believe the existing conflict of interest policies affecting NIH do not sufficiently discriminate among groups of employees who have widely differing responsibilities and therefore widely differing susceptibility to conflicts of interest. In particular, we conclude that the policies affecting senior officials of NIH should, as a matter of policy, be tightened-that is, made more restrictive.”

The NIH report suggests 18 recommendations for how COI policies in NIH might be revised.

Science magazine’s article (registration required) on the NIH report began like this, “For the past 5 months, critics in Congress and elsewhere have battered the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for allowing its scientists to accept hefty consulting payments from companies. Last week, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by NIH Director Elias Zerhouni offered a plan to restore public confidence: It recommends that top NIH officials and grant decision- makers be barred from industry consulting. But the panel “walked a fine line,” said co-chair Norman Augustine, by saying that in-house NIH scientists may continue to interact with industry, although within new limits.”

The issue was brought to light by a well-researched LA Times article from December 2003.