TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/041591/0415130.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6KB | 115 lines

                                                                                HEALTH, Page 60

Physicians, Heal Thyselves!


A new doctor arrives at the ailing National Institutes of Health
to fight low morale, sagging wages and official interference

By DICK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON


    Inside the laboratories of the National Institutes of
Health, 3,200 of America's best researchers are tackling medical
mysteries that range from conception to aging. But one of the
most perplexing problems confronting the NIH is its own health.
Considered by many to be the world's most productive
biomedical-research facility, the NIH is nonetheless suffering
from a multitude of ailments. Noncompetitive salaries have made
it difficult to retain top researchers or hire replacements.
Political meddling has stopped some areas of investigation and
assumed control of others. A recent monitoring of ethical
infractions, concerns about allegations of fraud, and new
conflict-of-interest regulations have combined to drag down
morale. The Bush Administration let the situation worsen by
leaving the NIH without a director for nearly two years. At
least three men turned the job down, some protesting the
Administration's abortion "litmus test."

    "Things are so bad, some have said, they couldn't even get
a man to be NIH director," jokes Bernadine Healy, a
cardiovascular researcher. This week Healy, 46, makes her debut
before Congress as the new NIH director, the first woman to hold
that job. To many it appears that George Bush may finally have
summoned just the right doctor. In addition to work in medical
and research areas, Healy has had a lengthy career in science
policy. She has served on several federal science-advisory
committees and, most recently, as chief of the Cleveland Clinic
Foundation's Research Institute. Most important, she knows
intimately the problems confronting the NIH. "This is not only
a job worth doing but also one that can be done," she says.

    Healy is now entrusted with the world's most unusual
biomedical-research center. No other institution houses as many
biomedical researchers on a single campus. "It's the linchpin
of biomedical research," says Yale medical school dean Leon
Rosenberg. Last year alone, NIH scientists or their associates
on university campuses began the first federally sanctioned gene
therapy on a human, located the cystic fibrosis gene, developed
a drug to reduce paralysis from spinal-cord injuries and
demonstrated that the drug AZT prolongs life in AIDS patients.

    But the excitement of medical discoveries has masked the
NIH's growing problems, especially funding. The 13 institutes
that make up the NIH consume $8.3 billion in federal financing.
While the NIH budget has grown steadily throughout the 1980s,
politicians have earmarked larger portions for specific projects
(such as AIDS research and the Human Genome Project) and left
fewer dollars for fundamentals. Moreover, the wages paid federal
scientists, which have never been comparable to those paid their
counterparts outside government, have fallen dramatically behind
-- and the lure of fatter paychecks is becoming almost
irresistible. The average salary for scientists with 10 years'
experience is about $60,000. Researchers with that experience
can double their paychecks at most universities, and in industry
their wages can triple. The salary discrepancy has made it
difficult to find replacements, particularly since today's
medical-school graduates are burdened by enormous loans. Says
J. Edward Rall, director of the NIH's Office of Intramural
Research: "If somebody owes $80,000, it is difficult to
contemplate a research career with the government. You just
can't afford it." A proposed job category that would allow 200
top scientists to be paid as much as $138,900 is being
re-evaluated by the White House.

    Poor pay has long been an accepted fact of life for
government scientists. But the rise of political meddling has
so soured the atmosphere around the campus that the salary
differential has become more important. The most obvious
limitations on scientific inquiry have come from conservatives,
who have won official or de facto bans in such
abortion-sensitive areas as contraceptive research and the use
of fetal tissue as a treatment in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's
diseases. When 20-year NIH veteran Lynn Loriaux was prevented
from studying the French abortifacient RU-486, he left last
August and became director of endocrinology at Oregon Health
Sciences University. "It was just too hard to find the freedom
to work in this area," he says. Since the ban on speaking fees
for federal employees went into effect last year, NIH
researchers have been prohibited from accepting lecture fees and
other traditional forms of supplemental income offered to their
academic brethren. And the institutes' new science police,
prowling for the scent of fraud, visibly signal a more stringent
environment on the campus. "All these things take their toll,"
says immunologist Joseph Bolen, a 10-year NIH veteran who has
just resigned to take a position with a pharmaceutical firm.

    In tackling these problems, Healy is aware she will need
to build a strong consensus for action. "No one woman, or man,
will be able to do it right without a lot of support," she
says. During the past two years, the individual institute
directors have moved into the power vacuum at the top, and it
will be difficult for her to wrest back authority. The NIH is
a national treasure. Healy's difficult task is to make sure this
treasure is not squandered, even if it means using every remedy
in her black bag.