NIH ethics investigation
Cash gifts from grantees prompt congressional investigation of
NIH officials | By Ted
Agres
Richard D. Klausner, former director of the National Cancer
Institute (NCI), and other current and former senior officials
of the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) are being investigated by a
congressional committee for possible violations of federal criminal
and ethics laws. The investigation centers on the acceptance by
Klausner and other officials of "lecture awards" and other cash
gifts from universities and research institutions that receive NCI
and NIH research grants.
In a June 26 letter, Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), chairman of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. James Greenwood
(R-Penn.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations, ordered NIH Director Elias Zerhouni to turn over
numerous documents relating to "management and ethical concerns at
the agency" by July 11.
John Burklow, associate director for communications at NIH, said
in a statement: "We just received the letter. We are not aware of
any ethics rules violations; however, we will review the questions
raised by the committee and respond in a timely manner."
Of particular interest to the committee is Klausner's receipt in
2000 of a $3000 cash award plus transportation and lodging expenses
from the Arizona Cancer Center, an NCI-designated
comprehensive cancer facility at the University of Arizona Health
Sciences Center in Tucson. Klausner was NCI director from 1995 to
2001.
In December 1999, the Arizona Cancer Center invited Klausner to
give its annual Waddell Award Lecture. Klausner accepted, and on
January 13, 2000 he delivered a lecture in Tucson on the future of
cancer research. At the time of the award, the Arizona Cancer Center
received NCI grants in excess of $25 million and had $486,000 in
federal contracts, the committee stated.
Klausner signed a recusal statement disqualifying himself from
participating in matters involving the Arizona Cancer Center from
December 15, 1999 until at least January 15, 2000. He also certified
that the "award is not being offered by an entity that has
interests… that may be substantially affected by the performance or
non-performance of the employee's official duties."
The committee asked an attorney with the American Law Division of
the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to analyze the legal issues
surrounding the award, Tauzin and Greenwood wrote. The attorney
concluded that the NCI director is a presidential appointee and is
prohibited by executive order from receiving any outside earned
income from the course of his appointment. "Thus, the NCI director
could not accept private payment as compensation or consideration
for giving a speech or lecture," the CRS attorney concluded.
Furthermore, the NCI director and other high-ranking NCI
officials are prohibited under federal ethics regulations from
receiving an honorarium from a private source for a lecture that
focused on cancer research funded by the NCI, the attorney said.
Klausner's 1-year recusal also does not resolve conflict of
interest problems since it was for a limited, short period of time
and did not prevent him from making decisions in the future,
"immediately after accepting the large cash award, which may affect
new grant applications [and] the renewal of existing grants."
Klausner is currently director of the global health program at
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle. A spokesman for
the foundation did not respond to a request for comment. Rob Raine,
media relations coordinator for the Arizona Cancer Center, said the
Waddell Award is granted to acknowledge expertise in cancer
research. "There was no intention to influence any kind of grants,"
Raine told The Scientist. "In fact, it's impossible. The
grant process is a peer-reviewed process."
Klausner's award from the Arizona Cancer Center is not the only
such incident, Tauzin and Greenwood stated. The following year,
another senior NCI official also received a Waddell Award and
delivered a lecture on cancer research.
In 2000, Klausner also received the Daniel Nathans Memorial
Award, a $4000 cash prize from the Van Andel Research Institute in
Michigan, the committee letter stated in a footnote. In 1999,
Klausner "apparently accepted" a $15,000 Block Leadership Award from
Ohio State University. That award was not included in Klausner's
public financial disclosure report for 1999, the letter stated.
The committee noted possible "systemic issues" in the award
approval process at NIH, including "self-certification of ethical
requirements" as opposed to an independent assessment by a federal
ethics officer.
In launching a "broad examination of 'lecture awards' from NIH
grantees received by NIH officials," the committee has instructed
NIH to provide a list of all lecture awards and prizes given to NIH
employees by institutions since January 1, 1998 and specific
information on the amounts and dates of all NIH grants awarded to
those institutions.
The lecture awards and cash gifts given to Klausner and other NCI
officials raise "precisely the ethics and conflict of interest
concerns at which the regulations and statutes on gifts and
compensation from interested parties are focused," the CRS attorney
concluded.
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