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IC Directors' Meeting Highlights |
June 16, 2004
Discussion Items I. HHS policies on International Visitors and Staff Foreign Travel Dr. Gottesman announced that the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness recently reviewed departmental practices related to hosting foreign visitors and to foreign travel by HHS personnel. As a result, the Secretary has asked that the Department formalize new security procedures. NIH has been asked to develop a plan on how it would implement such procedures. Dr. Gottesman, with input from IC Directors, and in close consultation with FIC, DDM, and ADRS, will develop NIH's response to present to OS by mid May. Dr. Lenfant stressed that LRP application reviews are not scientific reviews. Dr. Hanson suggested rewording the announcement to clarify that we are reviewing the scientific potential of the candidates. Dr. Lenfant also feels strongly that the entire process should be as open as possible and therefore that the national advisory councils should participate in the reviews in some way, although there is no absolute requirement for them to do so. After some discussion, the group concluded that the language (distributed with the meeting agenda) referring to "Council review"should be changed to "presented to Council" and that the quotation marks should be removed from around the word openness. II. Steering Committee (SC) Update Dr. Kington noted that the SC has met three times since he last reported.
lll. Outside Activities Update Dr. Kington noted that the NIH Ethics Advisory Committee (NEAC) that he and Dr. Gottesman co-chair meets regularly, and he commended the members who are dedicating a tremendous amount of time and expertise to this effort. He also noted that in order to gain historical perspective on the current conflict of interest issues, Dr. Zerhouni would soon make a request for voluntary disclosure of certain past compensation amounts. lV. Blue Ribbon Panel on Conflict of Interest (BRP) Update and Follow-up Hearings Dr Skirboll announced that the BRP's final report would be presented to the Advisory Committee to the Director on May 6 and urged everyone to attend this meeting. Mr. Smolonsky reported that Dr. Zerhouni and the co-chairs of the BRP, Dr. Alberts and Mr. Augustine, are scheduled to appear May 12 before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and that the following week on May 18, additional NIH and HHS representatives are scheduled to appear before the same Subcommittee. V. PART and GPRA Updates Dr. Skirboll and Dr. Zerhouni emphasized the importance of these two OMB-driven activities at NIH.
Dr. Skirboll noted that OSP and OB are working closely with CIT to develop a Web-based intranet site on which to gather IC input on both these activities. Dale Johnson |
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