NIH Scientists and Conflicting Interests: Outing the Hidden Consulting Arrangements, Study notes of Dance

Download NIH Scientists and Conflicting Interests: Outing the Hidden Consulting Arrangements and more Study notes Dance in PDF only on Docsity! 12 MARCH 2004 VOL 303 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org1610 Outing the Conflicted: Et Tu, NIH? WHAT SHOULD BE DONE WHEN THE BASTION of public-minded scientific research in the United States is revealed to have hundreds of potential, if not actual, conflicts of interest? According to a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times, some NIH officials have received hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past decade from hundreds of consulting arrangements with industry (1). The figures alleged are staggering, as are the connections made in the articles between the firms consulted to and the scientific work of NIH staff and their laboratories. But perhaps more surprising is that these consulting arrangements seemingly fall comfortably within NIH rules (2), were approved by NIH ethics officers, and were not generally disclosed. Apparently, 94% of NIH’s highest-paid employees are not required to disclose their consulting income (1, 3). Former NIH Director Harold Varmus has said that he loosened consulting restrictions to “strengthen our ability to recruit” (4). Given the large earning poten- tial of university scientists, it is not surprising to learn that NIH felt competi- tive pressure to loosen its rules (5). If the consulting arrangements detailed by the LA Times fall within NIH rules and were approved by NIH officials, why has there been a public outcry? One concern is that if these scientists are contracted to industry, they may not be conducting impartial and objective research for the sole good of the American people. Can they realistically serve two, or three, or even four masters? The suggestion that consulting can improperly influence the professional judg- ment of scientists is often angrily dismissed as an outlandish attack on character (6). However, even the most moral among us can be unconsciously influenced by outside inter- ests, and in other fields such as law, accounting, and journalism, a reliance on virtue has rightly been superseded by require- ments for full public disclosure and some- times by limits or prohibitions on the type and amount of compensation or time spent on outside activities. Another concern, less often voiced in these cases, relates to double-dipping. If a scientist’s desirability as a consultant stems from her NIH post, can she be sure that the advice and time she sells to industry does not already belong to NIH? In response to this concern, one NIH employee told the LA Times that he undertook his consulting work on vacation time. Others said that the advice they provided was based on their general knowl- edge and expertise, rather than on their partic- ular work at NIH (7). Nevertheless, given the sometimes six-figure sums involved, concerns should persist about whether salaried individuals can give their primary job the effort and attention it deserves while also undertaking considerable consulting work. Given similar consulting arrangements in many of the nation’s public and private universities, the real question of the moment is: Should we abandon the idea of impartial, disinterested science, or should NIH be the last stronghold of this ideal? For the sake of public trust and support, NIH must raise the bar. It should severely limit the amount of money employees can receive and the amount of time they can sell under consulting arrangements. It should prohibit employees from consulting to companies with whom NIH has official dealings and make the details of all consulting arrangements available on its Web site. If NIH scientists are too embar- rassed to have these details publicly known, then surely the propriety of the arrangements speaks for itself. As for recruitment, NIH will have to find ways of attracting employees that do not compro- mise research integrity. JOSEPHINE JOHNSTON The Hastings Center, 21 Malcolm Gordon Road, Garrison, NY 10524–5555, USA. E-mail: john- stonj@thehastingscenter.org. References and Notes 1. D. Willman, “Stealth merger: drug companies and government medical research,” Los Angeles Times, 7 Dec. 2002, section 1, p. 1. 2. NIH Office of the Director, NIH Statement about Outside Consulting Arrangements, 10 Dec. 2003, available at www.nih.gov/news/pr/dec2003/od-10. htm. 3. Editorial, Nature 426, 739 (2003). 4. E. Marshall, Science 302, 2046 (2003). 5. S. Krimsky, Science in the Private Interest: Has the Lure of Profits Corrupted the Virtue of Biomedical Research? (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2003). 6. M. Angell, N. Engl. J. Med. 342, 1516 (2000). 7. D. Willman, “Case study: Jeffrey M. Trent,” Los Angeles Times, 7 Dec. 2002, section 1, p. 35. 8. This research was funded by a grant from the Donaghue Foundation. Dietary Restriction in Drosophila DIETARY RESTRICTION IS ONE OF THE FEW environmental interventions that generally increases life-span (1). In their Report “Demography of dietary restriction and death in Drosophila” (19 Sept., p. 1731), W. Mair et al. found that short-term rather than long-term dietary restriction deter- mined mortality rates in Drosophila. Dietary restriction was also found to affect only age-independent mortality, a result found before (2). Mair et al. did not, however, shed much light on the mecha- nistic basis of immediate changes in mortality rate arising from dietary change. We believe that we can. Dietary restriction tends to increase Drosophila life-span, reduce mortality rate, and reduce female fecundity drasti- cally (3). As fecundity often has an antag- onistic evolutionary relationship with longevity (4), diminished caloric intake may reduce costly physiological invest- ment in reproduction, regardless of whether reproduction is occurring or not, and thereby reduce mortality. We have some evidence for the exis- tence of such a trade-off during abrupt nutritional change. Chippindale et al. (3) found that reproduction shifted upward when additional food was supplied in mid- life and downward when food was reduced [see fig. 3 in (3)]. This transition took Letters to the Editor Letters (~300 words) discuss material published in Science in the previous 6 months or issues of general interest. They can be submitted by e-mail (science_letters@aaas.org), the Web (www.letter2science.org), or regular mail (1200 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20005, USA). Letters are not acknowledged upon receipt, nor are authors generally consulted before publication. Whether published in full or in part, letters are subject to editing for clarity and space. LETTERS For the sake of public trust and support, NIH must raise the bar. It should severely limit the amount of money employees can receive and the amount of time they can sell under consulting arrangements.” –JOHNSTON “ C R E D IT :D R .D E N N IS K U N K E L/ V IS U A LS U N LI M IT E D L E T T E R S www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 303 12 MARCH 2004 1611 about 3 days, in either direction, about the same magnitude of time as the 48-hour transition observed by Mair et al. Chippindale et al. (3) also studied the short-term response of starvation resistance to a change in dietary regime. Starvation resist- ance is a major factor determining longevity in D. melanogaster (5–7) and is in turn deter- mined by the total stored calories in the fly (8). When dietary regime is abruptly changed, Chippindale et al. (3) found a rapid shift in starvation resistance that was the inverse of the rapid shift in fecundity. This also matched the known evolutionary antagonism between starvation resistance and fecundity. Given the evidence linking starvation resistance to longevity, starvation resistance must influence mortality rates. In sum, our interpretation of the effects of abrupt dietary change is that when fewer calories and nutrients are ingested, fecundity falls, increasing the storage of calories, thereby reducing mortality rates, and conversely. Furthermore, this interpretation can be extended to explain the findings of Mair et al. for both the increase and decrease in mortality rate in males and females with dietary change. That is, when caloric intake is increased, the storage of calories is reduced and reproduc- tive activity increases, thereby increasing mortality rates. Conversely, when caloric intake is decreased, the storage of calories is increased and reproductive activity decreases, causing mortality rates to drop. CASANDRA L. RAUSER, LAURENCE D. MUELLER, MICHAEL R. ROSE Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697–2525, USA. References: 1. C. E. Finch, Longevity, Senescence, and the Genome (Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1990). 2. T. J. Nusbaum et al., Exp. Gerontol. 31, 507 (1996). 3. A. K. Chippindale et al., J. Evol. Biol. 6, 171 (1993). 4. M. R. Rose, Evolutionary Biology of Aging (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1991). 5. M. R. Rose et al., Exp. Gerontol. 27, 241 (1992). 6. J. P. Phelan et al., Evolution 57, 527 (2003). 7. M. A. Archer et al., Evolution 57, 536 (2003). 8. M. Djawdan et al., Physiol. Zool. 71, 584 (1998). Response RAUSER ET AL. SUGGEST THAT THE REDUCTION in mortality rate in Drosophila in response to dietary restriction (DR) is caused by reduced fecundity and/or increased stress resistance. Increased life-span in response to DR in diverse organisms is accompanied by a reduc- tion in daily and lifetime fecundity (1–3). The suggestion that this reduction in fecundity is causal in the extension of life-span under DR has been made several times previously (4–7), including in the Perspective accompanying our paper (8). The idea may be correct, but at present, there is no direct experimental evidence for or against it. Experiments in which costly aspects of reproduction are blocked directly, and the effect on the response of life-span to DR examined, could throw some light on the issue. Increased stress resistance has also frequently been shown to accompany exten- sion of life-span in response to DR and has again previously been suggested to be causal (9–14). As for the effects of fecundity, there is no experimental evidence, and direct manipu- lation of the stress responses in DR and control animals could prove informative. WILLIAM MAIR, PATRICK GOYMER, SCOTT D. PLETCHER,* LINDA PARTRIDGE† Department of Biology, University College London, Darwin Building,Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT,UK. *Present address: Department of Molecular and Human Genetics and Huffington Center on Aging, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston,TX 77030, USA. †To whom correspondence should be addressed. E- mail: l.partridge@ucl.ac.uk References 1. T. Chapman, L. Partridge, Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. B. Biol. Sci. 263, 755 (1996). 2. A. M. Holehan, B. J. Merry, Mech. Ageing Dev. 33, 19 (1985). 3. M. R. Klass, Mech. Ageing Dev. 6, 413 (1977). 4. R. Holliday, Bioessays 10, 125 (1989).