Government Scientists Work For Drug Firms

Interviews and records document hundreds of consulting payments to National Institutes of Health officials. Subject No. 4 died at 1:44 a.m. on June 14, 1999, in the immense federal research clinic of the National Institutes of Health. The cause of Jamie Ann Jackson's death was clear: a complication from an experimental treatment for kidney inflammation using a drug made by the German company Schering AG. Among the first to be notified about the 42-year-old patient's death was Dr. Stephen Katz, the senior NIH official whose institute conducted the study. Participants were warned of some risks from Fludara, a drug that the NIH told them might cause damage to their blood cells and require blood transfusions. But unknown to them, Katz also was a paid consultant to Schering AG. Katz and his staff at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases could have responded to the death by stopping the study immediately, or by warning doctors outside the NIH who were prescribing the drug for similar disorders. They did neither. Katz said that his consulting arrangement with Schering AG did not influence his institute's decisions. His work with the company was approved by NIH leaders, who head an agency made up of 27 research centers and institutes.