Medical Journal Presses NIH to Be Even Tougher on Financial Conflicts

While the National Institutes of Health works to refine its new financial conflict-of-interest regulations, one of the nation’s leading medical journals is pushing the NIH to be even tougher. The NIH in May proposed cutting to $5,000 from $10,000 the level at which an NIH-backed researcher must report to his university a payment from an outside company, and a set of recommendations published today by the New England Journal of Medicine says the annual trigger number should be lowered all the way down to $100.