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New rules drive off NIH researchers

New York Janice Hopkins Tanne

Tough new rules on ethics and on competing interests have caused four top researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to quit and a prospective new head of one of the institutes to reconsider taking up the position. Meanwhile, the director of the NIH, Elias Zerhouni, told a Senate committee on 6 April that the rules had had a "deleterious impact" on the institutes and that he would consider changes.

The most senior of the top researchers to leave is James Battey, chairman of the NIH’s stem cell task force and head of its National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, who will retire in September. He has applied to be president of the new California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Preceding him out the door were the pathologist Lance Liotta of the National Cancer Institute and his colleague Emanuel Petricoin of the . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Pardes, H. (2005). The Promise and Risk of Academic Medicine. Mayo Clin Proc. 80: 1349-1352  

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

I am not surprised NIH researchers are leaving

Thein H Oo, MD, FRCP
bmj.com, 19 Apr 2005 [Full text]

Unamerican?

John Stone
bmj.com, 21 Apr 2005 [Full text]