Senators Chuck Grassley and Herb Kohl today put forward an amendment to the economic recovery bill, which will place new requirements on institutions receiving grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The NIH awards almost $24 billion annually in grants for biomedical research. The economic stimulus bill increases that largesse by billions of dollars.
The senators' amendment would require the NIH to make two changes to the way it is already supposed to manage conflicts of interest, according to federal regulation.
The Grassley-Kohl amendment would require the NIH to actively enforce its conflicts of interest policies and respond in a timely manner when those policies have been violated by grantees.
The amendment also would require the following information to be given to the NIH by grantees receiving NIH in excess of $250,000:
· The amount of the primary investigator's significant financial interest, estimated to the nearest one thousand dollars; and
· A detailed report on how the grantee institution will manage the primary investigator's conflict of interest.
"The goal of this initiative is to establish transparency and the accountability that comes from disclosure. It's become clear that the federal rules in place to manage conflicts of interest in research aren't enforced as they ought to be, and there's an opportunity to strengthen them here, as well," Grassley said. "The public has a lot at stake with medical research. With our doctors, we make medical decisions, based on scientific research, and taxpayers commit a lot of money for this work."
"NIH grants are highly competitive. The government has a right to know whether the scientists it funds have a financial stake in the outcome of their research," said Kohl.
The senators are exploiting a weak link at NIH. The NIH is not the most diligent at collecting disclosure information. This is partially because, to date, there is no evidence that conflicts of interest have biased any research conducted through NIH grants.
The NIH mission is science in pursuit of fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability.
The NIH budget has been stagnant for years, perhaps the Senators will also file an amendment that gives NIH the resources it needs to fill both its mission and mandates from Congress.
P.S.
I thought that Senator Grassley was against the economic recovery bill, largely because of all the extraneous items thrown in it. Earlier this week, he published a thoughtful analysis titled Look Before You Leap. Now, he is amending the economic recovery package to include something that has nothing to do with new jobs, or wait, perhaps this will add some administrative staff at NIH and save the jobs of administrators at medical centers working on NIH grants making them busy collecting this information.
On second thought, this just adds tasks — no stimulus here.