A draft of the regulations obtained by The Scientist puts nearly all responsibility for enforcing avoidance of conflicts of interest--such as equity ownership in biotechnology start-up firms benefiting from on-campus research--on the shoulders of universities receiving government funds.
"We don't want to see full disclosure statements," says George J. Galasso, NIH associate director for the Office of Extramural Affairs. "We try to avoid the role of a policeman.... We're not going to ask that [universities] submit their policy to us, but we reserve the right to ask for it. And if there are any problems, we want to know about it."
Although that policy is consistent with NIH's approach to other problem areas, such as protection of human subjects in medical and scientific experiments, it has prompted some critics within and outside the academic community to charge that universities cannot be trusted with such responsibility because in some cases they ...
