The SRA Symposium - College of Medicine

Papers
4. Conclusion
The NIH February 2005 winter of discontent may not have been made glorious summer by the
August 2005 amendments to the ethics rules—but the winds of change no longer blow quite so
cold as they once did.
Whether any of the feared mass exodus of scientific talent from the NIH occurs likely will have
more to do with whether the monies and the freedoms to engage in challenging and state-of-theart
scientific research continue to be made available to NIH staff than what stocks NIH staffers can
own and for whom they can consult.
The National Academies of Science was on target more than a decade ago when it stated that:
“[w]ith few exceptions, scientific research cannot be done without drawing on the work of others
or collaborating with others.” (NAP 1994.) It is that force of collaboration which has made the
NIH the center of gravity for world medical research for in the last half of the Twentieth Century.
While the faces, the buildings and the tools of research change, the underlying physics and effects
of research critical mass do not.
References
Berra, Lawrence Peter “Yogi” (Berra Undated) Born: May 12, 1925, St. Louis, Missouri; attributed to.
Connolly, Ceci (Connolly 2005), “Director of NIH Agrees To Loosen Ethics Rules,” The
Washington Post, Friday, August 26, 2005; A19, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2005/08/25/AR2005082501664.html .
DeRenzo, Evan G. (DeRenzo 2005), “Bioethics Inside the Beltway: Conflict-of-Interest Policy at
the National Institutes of Health: The Pendulum Swings Wildly,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics
Journal, Vol, 45, No. 2 199-219 (2005 Johns Hopkins University Press).
Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer, Federal Technology Transfer Legislation
and Policy/The Green Book (The Green Book 2002), at vii - x.
National Academy of Sciences, On Being a Scientist. (Washington, D.C. National Academy Press,
1994) (NAP 1994). Cited at 70 FR 22 (2005), at 5549.
Report of the National Institutes of Health Blue Ribbon Panel on Conflict of Interest Policies,
A Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the Director National Institutes of Health
(June 22, 2004) (Working Group 2004).
Weiss, R. (Weiss 2005), “44 Violated Ethics Rules, NIH Director Tells Panel: Conflict-of-Interest
Inquiry Focused on Work Done by 103 Current and Former Employees,” The Washington
Post, Friday, July 15, 2005; A21, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/14/AR2005071402116.html
Willman D., (Willman 2003) “Stealth merger: Drug companies and government medical research,”
Los Angeles Times, December 7, 2003, A1, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/
la-na-nih7dec07. story.
61 FR 147 (Tuesday, July 30, 1996), pages 39755 – 39767 (61 FR 147 (1996)).
70 FR 22 (Thursday, February 3, 2005), pages 5543 - 5565 (70 FR 22 (2005)).
86 2005 Symposium Proceedings Book