The Food and Drug Administration has disqualified seven investigators so far this year for misconduct, according to an FDA document. The ruling bars the doctors from conducting clinical trials of any kind.

The FDA, for reasons including submitting false information to the trial's sponsor or the FDA, or not complying with regulatory requirements, has disqualified more than 100 investigators from clinical trials over the past 40 years. But the number of disqualifications in 2008 equals the number of disqualifications in the last three years combined.

The FDA is quickening its response time to cases of misconduct in response to criticisms that the agency acts too slowly. "Delays in banning researchers have allowed people that do things that they shouldn't be doing to continue,'" Joe Barton, Congressman from Texas, told Bloomberg News.