Massachusetts General is investigating a research center run by Joseph Biederman, a Harvard child psychiatrist who has been criticized by Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley for taking funding from Johnson & Johnson, maker of the antipsychotic Risperdal. The new rules are designed to target perks and favoritism that may lead to bias.

“Relationships with industry are fundamentally important for translating scientific advances into patient care improvements,” Mongan said. “But they must be managed in a way that assures the actual — and perceived — integrity of our research, education, and patient care activities.”

Hospital officials have begun briefing physicians on the guidelines, which will be posted on a Web site tomorrow, according to a memo that was sent to doctors. The non-profit groups goal is to have most of the policies in effect by Oct. 1, the memo said.

Written Invitations

Under the guidelines, drug and medical-device company representatives will now need written invitations to visit Partners sites and staff, the memo said. Free samples left by companies, once a staple of individual doctors desk drawers, will be distributed through hospital pharmacies, or some other centralized system, the statement said.

Educational programs and fellowships are also required to be centrally accepted, reviewed and distributed at each hospital, according to the statement. Research on specific subjects will be prohibited “when certain conflicts of interest are present,” it said.

A new committee will be created to review potential conflicts of interest, educate staff and employees, and enforce policies, the statement said.

The guidelines represent, “a serious and comprehensive step forward in the rapidly evolving arena of medicine and its relationship with industry,” said Darrell Kirch, president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges, according to the statement.

Under Scrutiny

Conflicts of interest among doctors and medical researchers have come under scrutiny since Grassley said in June that Biederman, the Harvard psychiatrist, failed to properly disclose $3.2 million he received from Eli Lilly & Co, Johnson & Johnson, and other drugmakers.

Yesterday, Columbia University in New York said faculty must report any conflicts of interest when publishing research. Prior to that announcement, disclosure had been voluntary, said Sharyn OHalloran, a political science professor on a panel that overhauled the research guidelines. Columbia also created a uniform set of conflict-of-interest practices for the medical school and the rest of the university, she said.

Johns Hopkins Rules

Johns Hopkins Universitys medical school in Baltimore said April 8 that it would restrict interactions between doctors and industry representatives. Stanford University School of Medicine, located near Palo Alto in California, said April 1 that it will require doctors to post industry income and royalty payments on a school Web site.

Harvard Medical Schools students have asked teachers to disclose compensation received from drug and device makers that might lead to bias. The school said in January that it will review its policies on conflicts of interest in drug research. In cases where Partners policies conflict with Harvards, the stricter guidelines will apply, the Partners statement said.

“Working with industry is essential to fulfilling our academic mission, but we have to do it in a way that removes potential bias and preserves the public trust in our institutions,” said Eugene Braunwald, a cardiologist and former chief academic officer at Partners who helped write the organizations new rules.

The Boston hospital recommendations came from an internal commission led by physicians that has been examining conflict of interest policies since 2007, said Peter Slavin, president of Massachusetts General Hospital, in an e-mail.

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Grassley, the ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, has probed whether doctors and research schools have properly disclosed links to drug and medical-device companies. Harvard, Emory University in Atlanta and Stanford University near Palo Alto, California, are among schools that have reviewed or altered conflict-of-interest rules in light of the scrutiny.

“Inquiries have led the committee to believe that physicians are failing to disclose the money they receive from companies as required by federal regulations,” Grassley said in the letter.

Pfizer spokesman Ray Kerins said the New York-based drugmaker would cooperate with Grassleys request to provide the information by March 10.

Wholly Appropriate

“We continue to believe that Pfizers practices with respect to its interactions with medical universities are wholly appropriate and are in compliance with industry standards and the law,” Kerins said in an e-mailed statement. “We believe our collaborations with academic medical institutions provide a valuable source of innovation and scientific advancement.”

Grassley has proposed federal legislation that would require drug and device-makers to publicly report payments to doctors. Eli Lilly & Co., Medtronic Inc. are among the companies that are or said they will publicly disclose consulting fees, royalties and honoraria to doctors.

New York-based Pfizer, the worlds biggest drugmaker, said Feb. 9 it will make public on its Web site as of early 2010 payments of $500 or more a year to U.S. practicing physicians, research scientists and academic institutions.

The senator said he was disturbed by the report that a Pfizer employee may have been watching the students in light of his committees earlier reports of drug companies attempting to intimidate academic critics of the industry.

Intimidate Young Scholars

“While I am not certain that photographing demonstrators rises to the same level, it does raise concerns that Pfizer is attempting to intimidate young scholars from professing their independent views on issue that they think are critical to science, medicine and the health and welfare of American taxpayers,” Grassley said in the letter.

“Pfizer regrets that a photograph of Harvard Medical School students taken by one of our sales representatives was offensive to anyone involved,” he said in the statement.

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Normally, flu vaccines are specific to only one strain of virus at a time. The new results suggest a single treatment may be developed that works for many strains. Such a treatment could be used to help slow outbreaks while more precise treatments are developed, researchers said. Human trials for proteins could begin as soon as the 2011-2012 winter flu season, they said.

“These antibodies have important therapeutic potential and pave the way for the generation of a universal vaccine,” said Ruben Donis, a study author and researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a conference call.

The treatment is made from a laboratory-produced version of human immune system defenses called monoclonal antibodies. It targets a different part of the flu virus than the bodys naturally produced antibodies.

The body produces antibodies to the rounded head of the flu virus, which can mutate quickly, said Wayne Marasco, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston and one of the studys authors. The neck of the virus remains relatively stable, so thats what he and his team targeted, he said.

Feeling Confident

“We are all feeling confident that we have opened another avenue of research,” Marasco said.

The study was done by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston; the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California, and the CDCs influenza division. The National Institutes of Health funded the work.

“This is an elegant research finding that holds considerable promise for further development into a medical tool to treat and prevent seasonal as well as pandemic influenza,” said Anthony Fauci, the director of by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in a statement.

The treatment isnt universal and doesnt cover all viruses, said William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Testing is still in an early phase, and human medical trials will have to be done to see if its safe. The findings are still encouraging, Schaffner said.

Two Roads at Once

Though the treatment would require an intravenous infusion and would be more expensive than a pill, having such a drug would help the effort to control infections, Schaffner said. Tamiflu, the Roche Holding AG pill for influenza, cant fight most infections that have been diagnosed in the U.S. flu season so far, according to the CDC.

The researchers havent partnered with a pharmaceutical company to develop a product yet, Marasco said.

“This is the first announcement of the work, so weve been fairly tightlipped as far as letting pharma know,” Marasco said. “Were interested in doing that now.”

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