Washington

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) looks set to ensure fuller disclosure of dealings that its senior staff have with private companies.

Elias Zerhouni, director of the biomedical research agency, told a congressional hearing on 22 January that the agency would take steps to guard against conflict of interest, or the perception of it, among its senior staff. “I have reached the conclusion that the NIH must make changes that will appropriately restrict current practices,” he said.

The hearing was held in response to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times, which reported on 7 December last year that some senior NIH scientists were receiving consulting payments from, or held shares in, biotechnology companies that were benefiting from grants or other decisions that the scientists could have influenced (see Nature 426, 739; 200310.1038/426739a). The newspaper noted that, under rules established in 1995, the scientists were not required to publicly disclose these interests.

Zerhouni also announced that a panel co-chaired by Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, and Norman Augustine, chairman of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, would look into the allegations and report within 90 days on steps the agency could take to guard against future conflicts of interest.

Senator Arlen Specter (Republican, Pennsylvania), chair of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that held the hearing, said the allegations raised serious issues for the agency. “I believe there have to be substantial remedial steps taken to ensure that a wall of separation between public duties and private compensation is maintained,” Specter said.

Observers say it is now likely that the US Department of Health and Human Services, of which the NIH is part, will change the rules that currently shield some agency scientists from public scrutiny. On 12 January, health-department lawyer Edgar Swindell sent a letter to the Office of Government Ethics, which oversees ethics regulations for the US federal government. He requested that senior officials at the NIH's 27 centres and institutes be required to disclose their sources of income to the public. At the Senate hearing, an official from the ethics office signalled that she would approve this request.

According to documents released by the health department, Swindell made a similar request six years ago which the ethics office rejected on technical grounds.