NIH GUIDELINES COULD FACE A VETO FROM WHITE HOUSE

NIH GUIDELINES COULD FACE A VETO FROM WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON--The Bush administration is unlikely to endorse any conflict of interest regulations that require clinical scientists to do anything more than disclose financial holdings in the companies whose products they are evaluating, according to White House officials.

National Institutes of Health administrators have recently completed work on proposed guidelines that suggest a more stringent policy, and are awaiting approval from the Department of Health and Human Services to announce them publicly. But a report released last month by the biotechnology working group within the President's Council on Competitiveness makes clear that the administration sees no reason to go beyond simple disclosure.

"Any blanket policy that goes beyond that would interfere with the proper functioning of the [federal] agency," explained Larry Lindsay, special assistant to the president...