The Wall Street Journal
September 2, 2005

The NIH assistant director's attitude that "if people are going to cheat, they are going to cheat" speaks volumes about the bureaucracy's laissez-faire attitude inherited by Director Elias Zerhouni.

NIH and its bewildering array of independent "institutes" allow for each to advance agendas that may be inimical to public health. For example, agency politics result in the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, run by dentists, having control over research to decide if mercury amalgam can harm a child's developing brain, a fetus or an adult's kidneys. The issue of neurological damage is decidedly not one for dentists to decide.

To his credit, Dr. Zerhouni has stood up to the bureaucracy to create rudimentary conflict-of-interest rules. But it will take Capitol Hill oversight and stories such as the one by reporter Bernard Wysocki to break open NIH's protectionist culture.

Charles G. Brown
National Counsel
Consumers for Dental Choice
Washington, D.C