Zerhouni Down, Fauci and McSweegan to go.

[Mort Zuckerman]

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Subject: Zerhouni Down, Fauci and McSweegan to go.

Date: Sep 24, 2008 3:48 PM

Fauci:
http://www.actionlyme.org/KMLEMPNER.htm
McSweegan:
http://www.actionlyme.org/GOLDWATER_LETTER.htm


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/health/policy/25nih.html?pagewanted=print

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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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