It looks like the National Institutes of Health might ring in 2010 by getting serious about addressing conflicts of interest among its grantees.

Image: NIH

NIH director Francis Collins, in an interview with C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program, said that the agency would issue a "Proposed Rule" in January or February that will seek to prevent pharmaceutical companies from ghostwriting studies for researchers and require drug makers and other medical companies to disclose financial relationships with NIH-funded scientists and institutions via publicly accessible websites.

"I was shocked by that revelation that people would allow their names to be used on articles they did not write, that were written for them, particularly by companies that have something to gain by the way the data is presented," Collins said in the interview, referring to reports of ghostwriting among NIH-funded researchers that have recently surfaced.

"The integrity of biomedical research is something we must not compromise," Collins said. "We have to tighten up on that. There is a process ongoing at NIH to put out some new ideas about how our grantee institutions and investigators need to be more forthcoming about disclosure." Collins said that sometime in the next "month or two," the NIH will issue a "Notice of Proposed Rule Making" regarding the new requirements.

"It will certainly be quite a change from the way that NIH has, in the past, largely left that to institutions. Now NIH is going to want to have a lot more information about what its investigators are up to as far as any potential conflicts."

Collins' comments echo recent promises from the NIH to address conflicts among the researchers and institutions it funds. The NIH's deputy director Raynard Kington said last December -- while he was acting director -- that the agency would act on conflicts in "roughly six months to a year." Then in May, the NIH put out a call for public comment on more stringent conflict rules in draft form.

You can watch the full "Newsmakers" interview here.

Hat tip to USA Today's "ScienceFair" blog.


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