For the past year, the biomedical research community of the United States was rocked by a Senate probe revealing that several prominent researchers failed to disclose properly heavy payments they received from drug companies. The National Institutes of Health is now looking to strengthen its rules to monitor conflicts of interest involving NIH grants. Yesterday, two academic groups heavyweights weighed on possible changes. They agree that scientists need to disclose more of their income, but reject other proposals.
Currently, recipients of NIH are accountable to their own institutions financial interests (consulting fees or stock, for example) "affected by the research" that exceeds $ 10,000 per year or 5% of the capital. This threshold is too high, says a letter to NIH of the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Association of American universities. the groups say the investigators should report directly or indirectly related to their research . for institutions to report to NIH, they would like to see a less "significant" threshold: $ 5,000 or 0.1% of capital for listed companies
the two groups also agree that the NIH should. gather more information on conflicts of institutions they manage. Under current rules, the institutions just say NIH that a conflict exists for a particular subsidy.
However, the groups did not think that the NIH should set any limit on financial conflicts, even for studies involving human subjects. Although AAMC and the AAU have recommended to their members that major conflict should generally be prohibited in clinical research, they say institutions need flexibility. The letter said that it is premature for NIH to require political conflicts for institutions (and individuals) because schools are still working on how to develop institutional policies.
"Imposing overzealous regulations could disrupt productive partnerships at the expense of science and the public," the letter warns. The comment period is open until July 7, and other groups and individuals are likely to weigh. But AAMC and AAU are very influential, so that finally the regulations will likely reflect closely what they recommend.
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