David Obey: “I think the Burton amendment is a well-meaning amendment that will do little to help ethics, but it will do irreparable…”

“I think the Burton amendment is a well-meaning amendment that will do little to help ethics, but it will do irreparable harm to vaccine development. The amendment blows up a carefully balanced process proposed in 1989 by President Bush which allows narrow and necessary conflict of interest waivers to enhance the government's ability to support the development of crucial vaccines. The amendment is opposed by the Office of Government Ethics itself, and that agency says, "The government would be depriving itself of much of the best and most relevant outside expertise in many areas. The amendment would prohibit waivers for financial interests that are so insubstantial, remote, or inconsequential that they are typically permitted even for regular full-time government employees." They go on to say, "Existing law strikes the correct balance between protecting the government from inappropriate conflicts of interest and recognizing the need for temporary experts who may have unavoidable conflicts in relevant fields of inquiry." In short, even the agency that enforces government ethics says this is a bad idea. It may be well meaning, but it certainly, in the way it would be implemented, would wreck our vaccine development program.”