Senator Accuses NIH of Evading Ethics Rules

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Senator Accuses NIH of Evading Ethics Rules

Science Now - Washington,DC*

By Jocelyn Kaiser

ScienceNOW Daily News

23 September 2008

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/923/3

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is dealing with yet another

headache over financial conflicts of interest in research. Today, a

member of Congress charged that NIH is trying to get around its own

ban on staff consulting for industry by hiring an academic scientist

who works with industry as an NIH consultant. NIH, however, says the

researcher was in a temporary position at NIH and no rules were

broken.

Over the past few months, Senator Grassley (R-IA) has been

looking into whether NIH-funded researchers at over 20 universities

properly reported income they received from drug companies. Grassley

has focused on Marvin Konstam, the former chief of cardiology at

Tufts Medical Center in Boston who also serves as medical director

for a device company, Orqis Medical in Lake Forest, California. In

January, Konstam became a senior advisor to the National Heart,

Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) director Nabel.

In a letter to NIH today, Grassley notes that Konstam's latest

papers and a recent Orqis press release give his affiliation as

Tufts. Yet he has been quoted in a news article, Grassley's letter

says, as NHLBI senior advisor. " Obviously anyone would be confused

about who is Dr. Konstam's employer, " Grassley writes. He adds: " I'm

concerned that the NIH may be avoiding intramural conflict of

interest policies by hiring experts as contractors instead of as

full time employees. " NIH employees are banned from paid industry

consulting. According to the agency's employee manual, people who

work at NIH but are not federal employees--guest researchers, for

example--are not covered by its strict ethics rules. However, the

manual says that " any involvement with an outside organization must

be discussed first with the supervisor or other individual to whom

they report, to ensure that there are no conflicts with the work

being performed at NIH. "

NIH spokesperson Burklow says that NIH was aware of Konstam's

company ties; " it doesn't look like anything is out of order, " he

says. The cardiologist is a Tufts employee who came to NIH through a

federal program that allows academic researchers to take leave from

their institution and spend up to 2 years at a federal agency,

Burklow says. Konstam helped NHLBI develop a strategic plan for

cardiovascular disease research; he was not involved in awarding

grants or conducting research at NIH. But Konstam's 1-year stint

ends in December, and he will returning to a different position at

Tufts. This plan " was already in the works, " Burklow says. Tufts

said in a statement that Konstam " recently accepted " a position as

Chief Physician Executive of the medical center's Cardiovascular

Center. An assistant in Konstam's office said that he has been

spending one day a month at the university and the rest of the time

at NIH.