Xenotransplantation opponents take FDA to court

Abstract

Back in May, officials at Harvard Medical School gingerly stepped back from a plan to relax the institute's conflict-of-interest policies, which are considered among the strictest in the United States. At the time, they called for a national forum to establish more uniform standards of conduct for researchers at US academic medical centres (see Nature 405, 497; 2000). Last week, a closed meeting in Washington edged these standards a step closer to reality. Organized by Harvard's dean of medicine, Joseph Martin, the meeting brought together representatives from eight of the ten largest medical schools in terms of funding from the National Institutes of Health (including Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Washington University). Also present were high-profile leaders such as former National Institutes of Health director Harold Varmus, now president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. According to those who attended, the meeting focused on the conflicts of interest that investigators might face when their research offers the potential for personal gain. Recent studies, including one that appeared last week in the New England Journal of Medicine (343, 1621-1626; 2000), have shown a high degree of variation in the ethics I Raising the standard: Harvard's Joseph Martin wants a common policy for conflicts of interest.