NIH issues new conflict of interest guidelines for researchers

New NIH guidelines, proposed Thursday, are intended "to prevent financial conflicts of interest among [40,000] researchers who receive federal funding, a move long sought by watchdogs of scientific research concerned about the influence of the drug industry and others," The Washington Post reports. The NIH guidelines "will reduce from $10,000 to $5,000 the minimum payment that researchers will be required to report and mandate that universities, colleges, research institutes, businesses and other entities that employ researchers who receive NIH funding monitor compliance with the new reporting requirement" (Stein, 5/21).

Bloomberg News/The New York Times: "Universities would have to list those 'significant financial interests' on their Web sites once the rules take effect this year" (5/20).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.