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experience of the PolyHeme trial. “We have a conundrum in this country,” said Gould, Chief Executive Officer of Northfield. “It’s the balance between the need to respect patients’ rights and the need to conduct rigorous scientific studies in emergency life-threatening situations. Those are the opportunities for some of the greatest advances in care, and yet it is virtually impossible to do them with the traditional approach to informed consent.”

After two years of stinging disclosures about government scientists moonlighting for the pharmaceutical industry, the National Institutes of Health last August instituted new restrictions against financial conflicts of interest by its researchers. The agency had proposed even tougher regulations six months earlier, calling for an outright ban on biomedical stock ownership as well as honoraria or other monetary compensation for outside work and activities for industry. Following a flood of support for researchers from professional organizations, academics and even politicians who called the measures well intentioned but overly broad, the total ban was eased. Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, the NIH director, conceded at a press conference that the earlier proposal may have been "calibrated a little too stringently." The final version limits the top 200 NIH officials and their families, rather than the 6,000 employees affected in the original proposal to no more than $15,000 in biomedical stock. Scientists are barred from outside consulting fees, while company-paid honoraria for some lectures and board memberships will be allowed if the payments are channeled through institutions such as hospitals as unrestricted grants.