Series of ethical stumbles tests NIH’s reliance on private sector for research funding
WASHINGTON — The National Institutes of Health received $7.5 billion in funding in 1990 — an amount that was seen as so paltry that Congress decided the country’s biomedical researchers needed help.
So lawmakers found a way to aid the NIH in a delicate ethical dance: They created a nonprofit that could turn to pharmaceutical manufacturers and soda companies to fund research into their fields, all while attempting to prevent the science from being compromised by the big-money interests picking up the tab.
Even as the NIH budget has climbed to $39 billion next year alone, such public-private partnerships have funded dozens of popular initiatives into specific areas like autoimmune diseases and cancer immunotherapy.
But recent projects have put the NIH in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. The most controversial was a much-publicized , which was after the NIH concluded scientists had so thoroughly involved alcohol industry figures in planning as to render the science untrustworthy.
