Stealth Merger: Drug Companies and Government Medical Research

Fewer Public Filings

While making it easier for scientists to cut consulting deals, the NIH has made it harder for the public to find out about them.

The Ethics in Government Act requires yearly financial-disclosure reports from senior federal employees. This year, employees paid $102,168 or more generally must disclose outside income by filing a "278" form, which is available for public review. Other employees may file a "450" form -- which does not specify the amount of money received from an outside party and is kept confidential.

At the NIH, 2,259 employees make more than $102,168, according to data provided by the NIH. Those records show that 127 of the employees -- about 6% -- are filing disclosure forms available to the public.

From 1997 through 2002, the number of NIH employees filing public reports of their outside income dropped by about 64%, according to the agency records. Most of those employees have switched to filing the confidential 450 form.

At the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases -- which researches treatments for AIDS and other life-threatening maladies -- only three officials file public reports revealing their outside income, according to NIH records.

Officials at the NIH said that an advisory legal opinion from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics gave them the discretion to bypass public disclosure.

Issued in 1998, the opinion said that the threshold for public disclosure was to be set, not by a federal employee's actual salary, but by the low end of his or her pay grade. If the minimum salary in an employee's grade is beneath the $102,168 threshold, he or she is exempt from filing a public report.

The NIH has shifted many of its high-salaried employees into pay plans with minimums that dip below the threshold.

For instance, two prominent NIH laboratory leaders, Schlom and Germain, make $180,400 and $179,900, respectively. Within roughly the last year, NIH changed each of their pay plans, and they now are exempt from public disclosure.

They file confidential forms, which instruct employees to not specify the dollar amounts they receive from outside parties.

Asked why the NIH has assigned highly paid staff to plans that eliminate public disclosure of employees' outside income, an NIH spokesman, John Burklow, provided a written response:

"The primary benefit of the alternate pay plans is to attract and retain the best scientists in a highly competitive environment."