A key Congressional committee is probing possible conflicts of interest among academic researchers leading a large, federally financed study of whether annual medical scans of smokers’ lungs can save lives. The committee is seeking detailed information about the scientists’ relationships with tobacco companies, and has suggested that federal rules governing conflicts among academic researchers lack strength in general.
Two of the study’s principal investigators testified as paid experts for tobacco companies facing lawsuits seeking to force them to pay for smokers’ annual CT scans, according to a letter, dated Thursday, to the National Institutes of Health from Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who leads the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees medical research. Congressman Dingell and Rep. Bart Stupak, chairman of an investigations subcomittee, said that such potential conflicts “could damage the credibility” of the decade-long, $200-million National Lung Screening Trial.
The letter from the congressmen did not identify the lead researchers, but the Wall Street Journal said they were Denise Aberle, a professor of radiology at the University of California at Los Angeles, and William C. Black, a professor of radiology at Dartmouth College. Dr. Aberle and Dr. Black have said their testimony for the tobacco companies had no influence on their government studies, the Journal reported. Review panels at their institutions found no conflict, and Dr. Black returned a $700 consulting fee to a tobacco company’s lawyer after he was criticized for his testimony, the congressmen wrote.
The Journal reported that about 50 academic scientists were leading the study on lung-cancer screening, and the committee’s letter asked the NIH for information on all of their consulting relationships, expert-witness work, and financing sources on other research.
Under Mr. Dingell’s leadership, the committee has said it is broadly examining federal rules for conflicts involving academic scientists. Thursday’s letter pointed out that the rules were “strikingly” less strict than the ones for the NIH’s own staff scientists, which were recently tightened after several scandals over conflicts. The rules for outside researchers largely leave it up to universities to identify and handle conflicts. —Jeffrey Brainard
