Washington Editor

The nonpartisan, nonprofit group Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA) launched a new wiki-based website this week that allows the public to track the science, technology and health policy positions of lawmakers and political candidates.

SEA created the Science, Health and Related Policies Network, or SHARP, to "make it as easy as possible" for scientists and the general public to find information and to actively make information available online, SEA Executive Director Lesley Stone told BioWorld Today.

She noted that the website, at http://sharp.sefora.org, is open for anyone to visit. However, those who want to post information using the site's wiki software, which allows users to easily create, edit and link web pages, must register.

Susan Wood, a research professor at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and a member of SEA's board of directors, said registered SHARP users can post letters they have received from their members of Congress, texts or video clips of speeches or public statements made by lawmakers and political candidates or other documents to the site.

"We've seen with Wikipedia that you can actually make it work with a good level of success," Wood said, noting the popular wiki-based online encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers from around the world.

SEA will review and fact-check all postings to ensure the accuracy of the information, she said in an interview.

Any registered user who repeatedly posts inaccurate or misleading information to the site, the "bad actors," Stone said, will be blocked from making any future contributions. SEA anticipates that lawmakers and political candidates also may fact-check information on the site, Wood said. No doubt, she added, politicians might post information to SHARP to ensure certain of their views, but not necessarily all, are known to the public.

Wood emphasized that SEA intends to diligently ensure that SHARP does not appear to promote one particular political candidate or elected official's point of view.

SHARP's mission, she asserted, is to simply ensure that scientists and the public have access to information about science as it relates to government.

The site gives the public an opportunity to participate in informing the nation about the positions politicians have taken about global warming, stem cell research, the teaching of evolution in the schools, cloning and other science-related issues, said Wood, who resigned in protest in 2005 as the director of the FDA's Office of Women's Health after the agency postponed its decision to make emergency contraception available without a prescription.

"When SEA launched in late 2006, we had thousands of members join, and one of the questions they asked repeatedly, is 'What can we do? We want to be part of this. We want to be active,'" Wood said.

SHARP, she said, gives scientists and the public the chance to be actively involved in ensuring government is being responsible with creating science-related policies.

"Hopefully, they will jump right in" to contribute to the site, she said. "If you have a place to take the information that you've got and share it with others in a reputable and credible fashion, then that will motivate other people to also do that, and at the same time, benefit those who are looking for that information."

SHARP currently has about 500 web pages in its network, including one for each member of Congress and the presidential candidates, Stone noted. The site includes links to Senate and House committee websites and links to news articles about government policies related to science and health care issues.

Oversight of NIH Grants Probed

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has poor oversight of the financial conflicts of interest in the grants it awards to outside researchers, according to government auditors.

The NIH annually distributes almost 80 percent of its $29 billion in appropriations through over 50,000 competitive grants.

While the agency tracks the conflicts of interests of its grantees, its database for collecting those conflicts is incomplete and inadequate, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) stated in a new report.

In addition, NIH is not aware of the types of financial conflicts of interest that exist within grantee institutions because details are not required to be reported and most conflicts of interest reported do not state the nature of the conflict, government auditors said.

At least 89 percent of financial conflict-of-interest reports reviewed by the OIG did not state the nature of the conflicts or how they would be managed.

In fact, the auditors said, only 30 of he 438 conflict-of-interest reports included detailed descriptions of financial conflicts.

NIH's primary method of oversight is reliance on grantees' "good faith" assurances that financial conflict-of-interest regulations are followed, rather than directly overseeing or reviewing the management of those conflicts, the OIG found.

The OIG recommended that NIH increase oversight of grantee institutions to ensure their compliance with federal regulations and require grantees to provide details regarding the nature of financial conflicts of interest and how they are managed, reduced or eliminated.

In addition, auditors advised NIH to ensure that its database contains complete and adequate information on conflict-of-interest reports provided by grantee institutions.

NIH said it would accept two of the OIG's recommendations, but did not concur with the inspectors' recommendation to require grantees to provide details about financial conflicts of interest, auditors said.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who has been investigating issues related to conflicts of interest in medicine and science, said grantees, which include many academic institutions, "need to take this issue more seriously."

In addition, he demanded, the NIH should "monitor its grants more closely for this problem."

DTC User Fee Program Postponed

The FDA said it will not commence a new user fee program for the review of television advertisements for prescription drugs because lawmakers failed to appropriate the initial funds for the program.

The direct-to-consumer (DTC) user fee program, required under the Food and Drug Administration Amendment Act of 2007, would have been available to companies interested in voluntarily submitting their commercials to the FDA for review in exchange for a user fee.

The FDA said it has canceled its DTC user fee schedule for fiscal year 2008.