OMB Revises Agency Peer Review
Guidelines
April 23, 2004 - The Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) April 15 issued revised
standards (PDF, 36 pages-346KB) for peer review
of scientific information disseminated by, or on behalf of,
federal agencies. In particular, OMB sets forth requirements
for an additional level of peer review for an agency's dissemination
of highly "influential" information, such as information
supporting a major regulation or otherwise having a significant
economic impact on society. The AAMC objected to OMB's first
bulletin, proposed in September 2003, as being inappropriately
restrictive and potentially interfering with timely decision
making by the Public Health Service. The revised bulletin
considerably improves upon the earlier version, and provides
far more flexibility and deference to scientific and public
health prerogatives of government agencies.
For example, the original version set forward criteria for
peer selection that would have precluded the use of agency
grantees in an OMB-mandated peer review, under the presumption
that receipt of a research grant could constitute a conflict
of interest in critiquing a funding agency's dissemination
of information. Besides widely departing from accepted norms
in science - academic grantees are rarely seen to sacrifice
their independence with respect to federal policymaking -
this criterion was seen by many as an attempt to bias the
new review process toward favoring scientists employed by
industry. The revised bulletin does not consider agency grantees
to hold such conflicts, although it does retain that concern
for contractors. The revised bulletin also recognizes scientific
expertise as the chief criterion for a reviewer's qualifications,
and holds up the National Academies' procedures and standards
as a model for achieving balanced, expert, and independent
review of federal actions. The revised bulletin further provides
various exemptions from the added peer review requirement,
such as in the case of urgent findings from a clinical trial,
where the trial itself has already been peer reviewed, largely
addressing a major concern of the AAMC.
The revised bulletin, like the previous version, specifies
that OMB does not intend these requirements to affect the
publication or dissemination of information from peer-reviewed
National Institutes of Health (NIH) or National Science Foundation
(NSF) research grants, unless an agency has specifically endorsed
or promoted the release of those research findings. Federally
funded investigators will be encouraged to provide disclaimers
in research articles that their findings do not necessarily
reflect the views of the federal government. The deadline
for public comment to OMB on the revised bulletin is May 28.
Information:
Stephen Heinig, Lead Science Policy Analyst
AAMC Biomedical Health Sciences Research
sheinig@aamc.org
(202) 828-0488
This page contains documents in Portable Document Format (PDF).
The Adobe Acrobat® Reader® is required to view PDF documents. Download
Acrobat® Reader®.
Get Washington Highlights
in your Inbox!
|
