Charges of sex harassment, lax safety at NIH

updated 10:21 a.m. ET April 11, 2005

WASHINGTON - A boss sends a red bra to a former female subordinate who had a falling out with him. Government e-mails distribute profanity and a picture of a partly nude woman. An order to better protect patients in a medical experiment takes two years to complete.

All of that happened inside the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s premier medical research agency, according to sworn testimony and other documents obtained by The Associated Press from a variety of sources inside and outside the NIH.

Two senior female officers testified that the NIH workplace is so uncomfortable and intimidating that safety concerns are frequently dismissed and some employees are afraid to speak up.

“It can be fairly uncomfortable,” NIH medical officer Betsy Smith said in a recent civil-case deposition that has been turned over to federal and Senate investigators. “There are a number of things that you really don’t talk about.”

In such a work environment, “You don’t hold up any projects even if you feel there are safety issues for certain projects,” she said.

Documents tell of women being hugged or kissed by bosses, or being subjected to catcalls in the hallway. In one instance, a supervisor invited a colleague to a West Coast rock concert and suggested they also visit an AIDS clinic there so the trip could be charged to taxpayers.

Smith and the top regulatory compliance officer in the NIH’s AIDS division, Mary Anne Luzar, stepped forward in interviews with investigators and in sworn depositions in recent weeks and expanded upon allegations made last year by an agency whistleblower, Dr. Jonathan Fishbein. Their videotaped testimony was given in Fishbein’s lawsuit against the agency.

Unwanted hugs, catcalls
Fishbein alleges he is in the process of being fired as the AIDS division’s chief of human research protection because he raised concerns about patient safety and shoddy science. NIH says he was fired for poor performance.

The Senate and the inspector general at the Health and Human Services Department are investigating the allegations. In addition, officials told the AP that NIH is conducting an internal investigation on sexual harassment.

NIH managers acknowledged in interviews that there are problems in their AIDS research program, which pays hundreds of millions of dollars for experiments across the globe. They said they could not address specific allegations because of the investigations, but were taking steps to end any sexual harassment and improve communication among employees when safety issues arise.

“We must be sure our staff works productively and in a timely fashion with our investigators to resolve any issues related to the conduct of our studies, with the highest priority paid to patient safety,” said Dr. H. Clifford Lane. He is deputy director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which oversees the AIDS research division.

Lane said “sexual harassment is not tolerated at NIH and we are committed to ensuring that all employees are treated with dignity and respect.”

The two new witnesses testified in recent weeks to actions they alleged made the workplace intimidating. Examples included:

• Female workers receiving unwanted hugs, kisses or catcalls in the hallways.
• A safety order on a major experiment delayed for nearly two years.
• Safety conclusions changed or disregarded by supervisors.

Luzar, the AIDS division’s compliance officer, alleged that her bosses frequently sided with the front-line researchers they are financing, rather than with the agency’s safety and regulatory experts.

“I think we (safety officials) got in the way, and that we were an impediment to the science,” Luzar testified. She described the division managers as “totally unsupportive” of safety concerns and bending to “tremendous pressure” from drug companies and researchers in the name of trying to cure AIDS.

“I think the culture was certainly strong for a period of time that the ends could justify the means,” she testified.

'Scientific terrorism'
Smith said Fishbein was a strong advocate for improving safety for research participants and the effort to fire him is “a warning to other individuals.”

After Fishbein was forced out, she said, NIH held a meeting at which he and his allegations were attacked and a picture of one of Fishbein’s relatives was shown on a screen. Smith said the event was so intimidating that fellow safety and medical officers “called it scientific terrorism.”

Documents obtained by the AP show that nearly a year ago, NIH managers were warned by the agency’s civil rights protection office in a letter that the deputy director of the AIDS division, Dr. Jonathan Kagan, had sent numerous e-mails containing “profanity and sexual innuendo” and “unprofessional and inappropriate statements.”

The letter included e-mails showing Kagan sent to a male worker a picture of a bare-breasted woman with the caption “priceless” and sent a note jokingly instructing an employee to leave his pager behind and bring “bongs,” or drug paraphernalia, to an event. Kagan also used profane language in a variety of communications, the e-mails show.

NIH officials acknowledged they took no action after getting the letter last May. The investigation remains open, they said.

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