As part of a proposed spending bill, the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee has called on foundations supporting the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be more transparent about where their funding originates, Stat News reports.
The federally chartered Foundation for the NIH and the CDC Foundation were created in the 1990s to raise funds on behalf of the agencies from private donors, Science adds. But, it says that Congress is concerned that the foundations have not been adhering to disclosure rules. According to Stat News, the Foundation for the NIH reported in 2017 that it received $1 million contributions from 15 pharmaceutical companies.
These concerns, Stat News says, come after the termination of an NIH study into the effects of alcohol use that received about $100 million in funding from the alcohol industry and a two other studies — of concussions and alternatives to opioids — the NIH backed off of because of ethical concerns.
In its draft bill, the House committee instructs the foundations to include "the source and amount of all monetary gifts" as well as name all contributors whose funds came with restrictions on the used of those funds in their annual reports, Stat News says.