NIH one year ban on drug co consulting payments to employees

Now we can rest assured that Bush has brought ethics to the White House!

:-)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nih24sep24.story
NIH Imposes Ban on All Outside Payments to Its Employees(no "consulting
payments from drug companies" for at least one year)
The director's order is his strongest answer yet to conflicts of interest with drug companies.
By David Willman
Times Staff Writer

September 24, 2004

WASHINGTON—The director of the National Institutes of Health has decided to ban all agency employees from accepting consulting payments from drug companies for at least one year, officials said Thursday.

The move is the latest and potentially most far reaching response by NIH director Elias A. Zerhouni to revelations of multiple conflicts of interest among agency scientists.

In July, a report by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics concluded that NIH was beset by a "permissive culture" and that firm, across-the-board restrictions were needed to restore public confidence in the medical-research agency.

Zerhouni's decision was relayed late Thursday to NIH employees via a memo that was signed by directors of the agency's research institutes and centers. The memo said that Zerhouni, after his subordinates "identified vulnerabilities in our system that give us pause," wants a one-year "moratorium" on the company consulting fees.

In June, Zerhouni announced that he would ban the NIH's most senior officials — including the institute and center directors — from accepting fees from companies or nonprofit institutions. But at that time he opposed an agency-wide ban.

Over the past several days, Zerhouni privately informed members of Congress that he would soon seek the permission of the Office of Government Ethics to impose the broad-based moratorium, encompassing 5,000 or more NIH scientists. The NIH director is acting in coordination with senior Bush administration officials, according to his aides.<snip>