Report faults NIH on conflicts

More than a year ago, Ned Feder, former National Institutes of Health researcher and now staff scientist at the linkurl:Project on Government Oversight,;http://www.pogo.org/index.shtml wrote in a linkurl:letter;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/43576/ appearing in the __The Scientist__ that NIH-funded scientists "have been filing financial disclosure statements within their own institutions. However, their disclosure statements are kept secret, within each institution." Feder asked the question, "Why not require easily accessible public disclosure of the statements?" It now seems that the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has caught on to Feder's observations. An OIG linkurl:report,;http://www.oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-03-06-00460.pdf published this week, contained three findings: __1) "NIH could not provide an accurate count of the financial conflict-of-interest reports that it received from grantees during fiscal years 2004 through 2006." 2) "NIH is not aware of the types of financial conflicts of interest that exist within grantee institutions because details are not required to...