Sen Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) has criticized the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for funding research by a psychiatrist who had once been barred from receiving such support after failing to disclose financial conflicts of interest. In a May 29 letter to the NIH's director, Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, Grassley noted the agency had awarded Charles B. Nemeroff, MD, PhD, with a grant worth about $400 000 a year for a 5-year period.
In 2008, while Nemeroff was leading a $9 million federal study of paroxetine, he failed to disclose that he had received $1.2 million in consulting fees from GlaxoSmithKline, the drug's manufacturer, according to Grassley. The conflict of interest prompted the NIH to ban Nemeroff from receiving federal medical research funds for 2 years.