September 25, 2008 Federal Health Official to Step Down By GARDINER HARRIS
Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, the director of the National Institutes of Health whose six-year tenure was marked by a conflict-of-interest scandal and an increasingly grim budget situation, will leave the agency at the end of October, the agency announced Wednesday.
In a news release, the agency said he would pursue writing projects and other professional opportunities.
One of the few prominent Arab-Americans in the Bush administration, Dr. Zerhouni is an Algerian immigrant who came to this country more than 30 years ago with $369 in his pocket but became a multimillionaire after inventing numerous devices as a radiologist at Johns Hopkins University.
His signature achievements have included the creation of the N.I.H. Roadmap for Medical Research, a successful effort to get health institutes to share oversight of large projects. Dr. Zerhouni also created the Clinical and Translational Science Awards, which he hopes will accelerate the translation of the findings of health institute scientists into drugs and devices that benefit patients.
But the most salient part of Dr. Zerhouni's tenure was a years-long Congressional investigation of scientists within the agency who mixed their government research positions with private consulting deals. After a series of revelations, Dr. Zerhouni decided to ban agency scientists from consulting for drug and device companies.
The ban was unpopular among many agency scientists, who said it would make recruiting top scientists difficult. But medicine has changed considerably since Dr. Zerhouni made that decision in 2005. A growing number of medical schools and medical groups are also cracking down on the outside consulting relationships of their faculty and staff members, making the N.I.H. seem less an outlier than a leader.
``He confronted a very difficult situation with conflict of interest and got stuck between Congress and the scientists,'' said Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, chairman of the agency's department of clinical bioethics.
Dr. Zerhouni's greatest challenge has been a difficult budgetary environment. When he was appointed in 2002, the agency's budget was in the midst of being doubled under a bipartisan plan intended to restore its luster as the world's pre-eminent sponsor of scientific work. But from 2005 through 2007, the agency's budget remained stuck at $28.5 billion, although this year it grew to $29.5 billion.
Since about 80 percent of the agency's budget is used to finance initiatives at universities across the country, the flat budget led to a growing sense of alarm among academics. As budgetary realities have gone from bad to worse in recent months, the mood among many biomedical researchers has gone from alarmed to depressed.
Dr. Zerhouni was a respected administrator who was a sharp contrast to his predecessor, Dr. Harold Varmus. Dr. Varmus, a Nobel Prize winner, wore the scientist's uniform of khakis and rumpled shirts, and he rode his bicycle to work. He was known to show up at obscure scientific briefings and ask insightful questions that would wow everyone. He kept suits at hand for visits to Capitol Hill or the White House.
Dr. Zerhouni, on the other hand, wore suits and crisp red ties all the time. And he drove a silver Mercedes sports car to work.
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Posts: 15 | From Maine | Registered: Jun 2008
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Varmus left the job for a much better paying job in NY. But Zerhouni already has enough money apparently, so maybe he just got tired of being a lightning rod.
Probably won't make much difference in lyme policy, since that seems to continue regardless of who is in the top job at NIH.
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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AliG
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9734
posted
I had a little trouble reading your post, so I went to the link to read the article.
I'm a little confused because I think you may have comments intermingled. ???
I'm copying the article here to try to clarify what is from the article & what is from you or if it's just my brain messing with me.
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September 25, 2008 Federal Health Official to Step Down By GARDINER HARRIS
WASHINGTON -- Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, who shook up the agency when he barred scientists from consulting for drugmakers, announced that he would leave at the end of October.
During his six-year tenure, Dr. Zerhouni pushed scientists to focus more on patient care and less on basic research, and he forced the agency's independent institutes to cooperate on common projects.
But he also faced a stagnant budget that has curtailed research around the country and demoralized scientists.
In a conference call with reporters, Dr. Zerhouni said he planned to write about his time at the health agencies before accepting another job.
``I know there's speculation that I'm going back to Johns Hopkins,'' Dr. Zerhouni said. ``That's not been decided by me at all. I want to finish here, take a few weeks, maybe write a bit and evaluate what I want to do next.''
One of the few prominent Arab-Americans in the Bush administration, Dr. Zerhouni is an Algerian immigrant who came to this country more than 30 years ago with $369 in his pocket and became a multimillionaire after inventing numerous devices as a radiologist at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. James Thrall, chairman of the radiology department at Massachusetts General Hospital, said that Dr. Zerhouni got the health institutes to focus ``on the big problems, big issues and big opportunities.''
``Uniquely among all the recent people to hold that position, he got the battleship to turn in a different direction,'' Dr. Thrall said of Dr. Zerhouni.
The most controversial part of Dr. Zerhouni's tenure was a years-long Congressional investigation of agency scientists who mixed their government research positions with private consulting deals.
Dr. Zerhouni decided in 2005 to ban agency scientists from consulting for drug and device companies.
The ban was unpopular among many agency scientists, who said it would make recruiting top scientists difficult.
But in the wake of continuing Congressional investigations, a growing number of medical schools and medical groups are now cracking down on the outside consulting relationships of their faculty and staff members.
``I took decisions early relative to conflict of interests that are frankly now proving to be the right ones,'' Dr. Zerhouni said.
Dr. Zerhouni said his tenure at the health institutes could be split into three periods.
His first two years, he said, were a ``euphoric phase'' because the agency's budget was growing rapidly.
The second two years were difficult. Besides the conflict of interest controversy, the agency's stagnant budget during this time forced him to explain ``why it was harder getting grants.''
His final two years involved ``institutionalizing many of the reforms I had been advocating'' and hiring many of the agency's present leaders.
Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, chairman of the agency's department of clinical bioethics, had criticized Dr. Zerhouni's handling of the conflict-of-interest scandal but said Wednesday that Dr. Zerhouni ``has been a victim of very difficult circumstances that he didn't create.''
Dr. Emanuel praised Dr. Zerhouni's clinical research initiative.
Dr. Zerhouni was chosen after President Bush announced strict limits on federal financing of stem-cell research, and the White House made clear that Dr. Zerhouni was expected to support this policy.
But in 2004 and 2005, Dr. Zerhouni told Congress that the president's policy was hindering scientific progress.
That he maintained the support of the White House despite this public disagreement is noteworthy.
By contrast, Dr. Richard Carmona, whose appointment as surgeon general was announced on the same day as Dr. Zerhouni's, was forced from his job in 2006 and later told a Congressional panel that he had been muzzled and his initiatives suppressed.
Dr. Zerhouni said he decided to leave the agency before the election ``so there is a clear sense that whoever wins the election, N.I.H. has to be a clear priority in their mind.''
Raynard S. Kington, deputy director of N.I.H., is expected to serve as the agency's interim director for the remainder of the Bush administration.
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-------------------- Note: I'm NOT a medical professional. The information I share is from my own personal research and experience. Please do not construe anything I share as medical advice, which should only be obtained from a licensed medical practitioner. Posts: 4881 | From Middlesex County, NJ | Registered: Jul 2006
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
interesting .... conflicts of interests !!
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adamm
Unregistered
posted
So now can we put him on trial for crimes against humanity?
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