In any clinical trial receiving NIH funds, principal investigators must certify that they do not have a financial conflict with the study (basically, that they do not have a financial stake in the outcome of the trial). It's always been viewed to be important to make sure that the research is not biased by the greed or need of the scientists (who, presumably, have the best opportunity to manipulate study data).
Now, NIH is proposing go another step further in making sure that conflicts do not enter into any research, and wants to ban its scientists from doing any outside consulting for one year (just to clarify, this is for scientists working directly for the NIH ... not scientists employed by private industry or academia, as that wouldn't make much sense). It seems that the NIH is being rather tight-lipped with details behind the call for the ban, but it feels that the review and approval process in place to allow its scientists to consult isn't as strict as it should be and the spokesperson for the NIH seems to imply that there may be some arrangements that could pose a problem.
The NIH has been looking into its conflict rules for several months now, beginning with meetings earlier this year on the topic. The panel must have found some pretty unsavory-looking deals going on to have proposed a moratorium while it renders any final decisions about new rules relating to conflicts.
By implementing this moratorium, though, all of the deals that the scientists had entered into with these companies are being suspended. It will be interesting to see whether any of the companies sue to enforce the contracts, or if they just wait to see what the NIH finally decides to do (more likely the latter ... what company wants the press that they secretly hired one of the scientists?).
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