A deadline looms next week for David Schwartz to respond to congressional questions about his office's spending and his other activities as director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and committee member Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) wrote in a 30 March letter that Kucinich is following up a January inquiry regarding Schwartz's controversial efforts to revamp NIEHS's journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Last year, Schwartz scrapped a proposal to privatize the journal, but critics still question his plans to cut costs.
But now, spurred by what it calls new information from "multiple sources," the committee also wants documents on Schwartz's activities as director, including his office's budget and any consulting or travel he's done for outside organizations under the National Institutes of Health's strict new ethics rules. A committee spokesperson declined to discuss the new information it had received on Schwartz, and an NIEHS spokesperson says it is "putting [its] responses together."
