National Institutes of Health criticised for not preventing conflicts of interest

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been criticised by members of Congress for letting employees accept lucrative consultancy assignments from drug and biotechnology companies.

On 22 June the director of the NIH, Dr Elias Zerhouni, told the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, “In retrospect, there was not a sufficient safeguard against the perception of conflict of interest.” He said the NIH would tighten rules about employees' consultancy work.

The NIH's troubles began on 7 December 2003. …