National Institutes of Health is again taken to task for doing too little to manage potential conflicts of researchers interest, such as consulting for drug companies. This time federal investigators say NIH should strengthen the rules that now provide the ability to NIH funding too much latitude in what they have to report.
The criticism comes from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General (IG), which in 08 revealed that the NIH did not pay enough attention to how institutions manage its donees conflicts of interest. In a follow-up report dated 18 November, the IG has reviewed the information donees 41 institutions submitted to the NIH in 06, and the documents retained by institutions such as disclosure forms. The most common conflict, he found was equity-owned 111 165 researchers had equity such as shares of a company, and six had equity of a value of over $ 100,000.
Seven members of the faculty received more than $ 50,000 in royalties or compensation. In most cases, the institutions "manage" these conflicts by requiring researchers describe in talks and papers, not get rid of them, the IG found.
The report found "vulnerabilities" in how universities monitor conflicts. For example, 0% of the 41 institutions allow researchers themselves to decide whether their financial interests are related to their research, and about half did not ask for specific amounts. Nor did they check to verify that researchers report honestly.
"There is a need for more transparency about and monitoring of grantees institutions," the report concludes. The report repeats previous advice that NIH make the institutions relate details on how they are managing conflict. It also lists several steps NIH should require institutions such as asking faculty members to report all possible conflicts, not just those they think are relevant, and the collection of specific dollar amounts.
Others have also called on the institutions to gather more information on the conflict, including an Institute of Medicine committee earlier this year. And many of the recommendations of IG HHS appear in a notice published in July on possible modifications regulatory conflicts of interest of public health services. NIH plans to publish proposed regulations in the coming weeks.
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