Royalty Payments to Government Scientists Facing Scrutiny

A government watchdog has discovered that over 1,800 government scientists received 27,244 royalty payments from 2009 to 2016, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in a seven-year time span.

Fox News reports that the findings were the result of a lawsuit filed against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by OpenTheBooks.com. The watchdog had sued the NIH after the agency allegedly stonewalled their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. As a result, the NIH agreed to share their bookkeeping on royalties, although they redacted the total amount of individual payments, as well as the inventions, and the third parties who actually paid the royalties.

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