NIH Official Takes Fifth on Tissue Sharing

A senior National Institutes of Health researcher yesterday invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer a congressional subcommittee's questions about his alleged use of federally owned tissue samples for personal gain.

"I respectfully decline to answer this question, and any other questions, based on my constitutional rights," said Trey Sunderland, an Alzheimer's disease researcher, in response to the first query posed by the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

At issue is an arrangement through which Sunderland shared thousands of vials of spinal fluid and plasma with drug giant Pfizer Inc., around the time he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed fees from the company.

"The ability of NIH researchers to get samples from people . . . relies on trust," said the subcommittee chairman, Rep. Edward Whitfield (R-Ky.). "These hearings focus on whether that system of trust behind the human samples research at NIH is working as well as it could."

Congressional investigators reported on Tuesday that they had uncovered evidence that Sunderland improperly shared more than 3,000 federally owned biological samples with Pfizer and pocketed at least $285,000 in fees relating to those samples -- along with more than $300,000 in fees for other services -- without properly reporting the arrangement. The samples could lead to tests for tracking the progression of Alzheimer's or for assessing the effectiveness of new drugs for the disease.

Several NIH officials testified that the agency had recently tightened its oversight of tissue sharing and was developing an inventory system to better track the disposition of specimens stored on its Bethesda campus. But without Sunderland's cooperation, few new details of the Pfizer deal emerged.

Thomas Insel, director of the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health, where Sunderland is chief of the geriatric psychiatry branch, said he supported the researcher's request to resign in November 2004, when the first evidence of improprieties emerged. Noting that other employees in similar circumstances would have been terminated by now, Insel expressed frustration that the process has been stalled for 18 months because of Sunderland's status as a member of the commissioned corps -- a lag, he said, that has harmed both Sunderland and the NIH.