The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is lax in checking for conflicts of interest among the researchers who receive billions of dollars in its grants, says a report by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, the institutes’ parent agency.

It has recommended that grantee institutions report the nature of financial conflicts of interest and how they are managed to the NIH. The NIH has objected to that recommendation, however, saying that it should not have to take on that responsibility.

During the fiscal year 2007, the 24 institutes and centres gave more than $29.2bn (£14.7bn; €19.8bn) in research grants, 80% of which was distributed through about 50 000 competitive grants to more than 325 000 researchers at more than 3000 universities, medical schools, and …