Report Calls for Uniform Conflict-of-Interest Policy

The GAO, which serves as the investigative arm of Congress, studied eight federal agencies and surveyed 171 universities to learn what steps are being taken to ensure the public’s access to unbiased research results. Currently, only two of the agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), require universities whose research they fund to implement policies to identify and prevent financial conflicts of interest. While other agencies do not have official standards, 87 percent of the universities surveyed reported that they apply to all of their federally funded research financial conflict-of-interest policies that are consistent with those of either the NIH or the NSF.

Eighty-two percent of the 171 universities responding to the survey reported that they require scientists to indicate whether a conflict may exist when a grant proposal is submitted; 63 percent require scientists to submit annual financial disclosure forms to institution officials; and 81 percent require scientists to update financial disclosure forms during the year if possible financial conflicts of interest arise.

However, seventeen universities reported that they do not extend NIH or NSF conflict-of-interest requirements to research grants from other federal agencies. The report concludes that “unless federal agencies uniformly require that universities implement conflict-of-interest policies, the government cannot properly safeguard against financial conflicts of interest that might bias federally funded research.”

The report also addresses research dissemination, noting that five of the federal agencies studied post the findings of funded research on their Web sites while three—the Department of Education, the NIH, and the NSF—do not. It acknowledges that federal agencies cannot require such publication in science fields, because it is impossible to ensure in advance that the results will be acceptable for publication. In addition, in some fields, such as biomedicine, research results must be validated by peer review. The report urges that the Department of Education, to which such concerns do not apply, start posting research results on its Web site.

The GAO report was published just over a month before the NIH decided to disqualify from funding scientists who have a financial interest in the research they are conducting totaling more than $10,000. The NIH says that the new ruling, which comes at a time when the agency has been under fire for using scientists who have a financial stake in the research they are conducting, represents an attempt to clarify older peer review regulations.

 Printer-Friendly Page