Patients put themselves at risk during drug trials for the NIH and might not if they knew the doctors receive royalties. The money does go back to research, the NIH once said. They had received 56 million, however, doctors are also personally awarded some of the money.
They aren’t transparent about their financial arrangements. Doctors might benefit financially for the use of their discoveries by pharmaceutical companies and device makers, reports from Associated Press alleges.
We should FOIA them during the virus cure and vaccine development [which probably won’t come since we’ve never developed a cure or a vaccine for any coronavirus].
FOIA’D FIVE YEARS AGO
Five years ago, Donna Shalala, then secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, issued a requirement that scientists disclose their financial interests. But nothing happened until the Associated Press’s investigations.
However, Dr. Fauci said five years ago that he had to take the royalties by law, saw the conflict, and gave it all the charity.
Two leading researchers, Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received payments relating to their development of interleukin 2 as a treatment for HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Lane told the BMJ that the payment was part of his federal compensation. He explained that the government patented the development and shared the payments it received with the inventors. Since 1997 he has received about $45,000 he says. The institutes awarded $36m in grants for studies to test the treatment.
Dr. Fauci told the BMJ that as a government employee he was required by law to put his name on the patent for the development of interleukin 2 and was also required by law to receive part of the payment the government received for use of the patent. He said that he felt it was inappropriate to receive payment and donated the entire amount to charity.
Both doctors told Associated Press that they had been concerned about an apparent conflict of interest for some time before the agency’s story appeared.
The NIH has no plans to put information about payments to its researchers on its website and if people want to know, they must make a request via the Freedom of Information Act to find out royalty payments to individual researchers.
Time to FOIA them about how much doctors will make from a coronavirus patent. Is this why they don’t like Hydroxychloroquine? Hopefully not.
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