Nearly three-quarters of the scientists conducting research at the National Institutes of Health say new ethics rules curtailing their opportunity to earn outside income will hinder the government’s ability to attract and keep medical researchers, the Associated Press reported.

That finding was among the results of an Internet-based survey of some 8,000 NIH employees conducted for the agency last summer. The respondents included 3,336 scientists, of whom 512 were tenured and tenure-track researchers, the news service said.

The NIH released the survey’s findings late last week, along with a memorandum from the agency’s director, Elias Zerhouni. In the memo, Dr. Zerhouni acknowledged that the findings “suggest concerns about the impact of the regulations,” but said no changes in the policy were anticipated at this time. The NIH does plan further studies, however, to gauge how the new policy has influenced former and potential employees’ decisions.

The rules were put in place last year after revelations that some NIH senior scientists had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical companies for consulting work related to their official duties, among other potential conflicts of interest (The Chronicle, August 26, 2005).