The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a set of proposed new rules today that will increase transparency surrounding potential conflicts of interest among funded researchers.
NIH director Francis Collins said in a morning teleconference that the proposal, while not stemming from widespread problems, is reflective of the fact that “public trust is essential going forward, and we can’t afford taking any chances with researchers’ integrity.” When finalized, the changes would mark the first major revision since 1995.
In the current proposal, the NIH lowers its threshold for reporting private payments to researchers from $10,000 to $5,000. Also, individual universities and institutions are given the responsibility of collecting information on significant contributions from their researchers, and then reporting potential conflicts to the NIH. This funneling process will likely require new offices within universities to coordinate and communicate data; they will also be responsible for posting researchers’ financial disclosures publically online.
Collins recognized that this could end up a burden for institutions, but said it is “outweighed by the necessity to attain and maintain the public trust.”
The NIH proposal will be published in tomorrow’s Federal Register and be up for public comment for 60 days.
