(NaturalNews) Medical research that is sponsored by drug companies has long been a conundrum. After all, scientists often welcome the big bucks of the drug industry in order to finance their studies -- but can they be totally objective when they are supported by Big Pharma? NaturalNews has previously covered this problem and how mainstream medicine, including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), has glossed over issues of researchers failing to disclose their association with drug companies (http://www.naturalnews.com/019914_J...).
But at least the U.S. government's own National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded scientists are open about their financial arrangements with drug companies, right? Wrong. And the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), an independent nonprofit group that investigates and exposes corruption and other misconduct in the federal government, is calling the NIH out on this problem.
POGO has gone public to urge NIH Director Francis Collins to deal strongly and openly with financial conflicts of interest among researchers funded by the NIH in universities and medical schools. Currently, the financial arrangements are reported on a strictly confidential basis only to the researchers' institutions. This secrecy has obviously created opportunities for abuses and conflicts of interest involving scientists funded by Big Pharma.
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