Charges of sex harassment, lax safety at NIH

Luzar, who had disagreements with Kagan over her performance, testified that Kagan once hugged her inappropriately upon hearing her father had died, and routinely kept a mug on his desk with a phrase that included a four-letter expletive.

“I found it very intimidating to walk into Dr. Kagan’s office for a one-on-one and see this — the first, first thing you see on the left side as you walk in the door is the cup,” Luzar testified.

Alyza Lewin, Kagan’s lawyer, said her client occasionally hugged or kissed female subordinates, and used “earthy language” in some e-mails to workers. Lewin also said Kagan once had retrieved a red bra that had been a gag gift among women in the office and sent it to a woman who had been a subordinate and who had transferred from his office after a falling out with him.

'Sexual games. Sexual taunting.'
Lewin said the NIH’s ombudsman talked with Kagan about the bra incident but her client was never disciplined for any sexual harassment and never intended to offend women. She said the mug was bought from a popular Web news site and that he removed it from his desk once learning it bothered people.

“Dr. Kagan never sexually harassed any NIH employee,” his lawyer said. “It is noteworthy these allegations were not raised at the time the incidents allegedly occurred, but only now in connection with Dr. Fishbein’s employment action.”

Smith, the medical officer, testified that supervisors elsewhere inside the NIH behaved similarly. She recounted how one colleague had difficulty breaking off a sexual relationship with a branch chief and said that when others at the agency went on trips, they learned “the hotel only has one room so that the female scientist has to stay with her superior.”

“I’m specifically describing individuals that don’t appear to be able to interact with females without having some amount of sexuality implied,” Smith testified. “Some sexual games. Sexual taunting. Sexual innuendo going on.”

Investigators from the Senate Finance Committee who interviewed some NIH employees have obtained documents showings that safety concerns about AIDS studies were frequently overruled or delayed by supervisors.

For instance:

• Luzar testified that NIH failed for two years to comply with federal regulations and her demand — first made in April 2003 — to update the safety protocol and instruct researchers in the field to consider new warnings to patients in a $36 million AIDS drug trial after new side effects emerged, including suicidal tendencies.

The NIH acknowledged the delay, but said patients were never in jeopardy because doctors were told about side effects as they became known.

“It is clear we can do a better job in our communications within the division and our communications with our investigators,” said Lane, the NIH’s No. 2 infectious disease official. “We want to see all our processes take place in the quickest possible way, and two years is long time for any process.”

—Smith detailed how a NIH supervisor delayed reporting for days the death of a patient in an experiment. The supervisor was “behaving as if she were a pharmaceutical company and did not clearly understand regulatory requirements for such a study,” Smith testified.

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