Director of NIH Agrees To Loosen Ethics Rules

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 26, 2005; Page A19

Flooded with 1,300 comments by employees and threats of high-level defections, the head of the National Institutes of Health agreed yesterday to loosen some of the ethics rules he unveiled in February.

Under the final regulations, about 200 senior staff members will be required to divest large stock holdings in drug and biotechnology companies, NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni said. That is far fewer than the 6,000 employees who would have had to divest under his original proposal to strengthen conflict-of-interest rules at the world's premier biomedical research agency.