That’s the language attached to an agriculture appropriations bill passed by the House last week after a move by US Representative Maurice Hinchey, Democrat of New York. The funding measure heads to the Senate, where the language faces a tough fight - opponents include Ted Kennedy, the Senator from Massachusetts, The Boston Globe reports.

Hinchey’s proposal goes further than a rule the FDA itself proposed earlier this year. The agency suggested barring panel members with financial ties to drug and medical device makers that exceed $50,000. Members whose grants or consulting fees totaled less than $50,000 during the previous 12 months would be allowed to serve on panels, but not vote. The FDA is still sifting public comments and has not issued a final proposal.

The issue has come up repeatedly this year. Last spring, a panel approved the Provenge prostate-cancer vaccine, but two members later wrote the FDA suggesting a delay. They’ve since been widely criticized by patients and investors who have cited ties to rival companies.

Last week, two panels met in which the FDA issued waivers - six for the Avandia panel and three for the Tysrabi panel. One Tysabri panel member held stock in rivals worth $75,000. The waiver was granted because the holdings represent a small percentage of the member’s net worth and the products made by rivals generate only small amounts of revenue. But the move suggests the FDA may find excuses even after its own rule becomes final.

The FDA complains that it’s increasingly difficult to find potential panel members free of conflicts…

…because of rising industry funding to academics and leading docs. The agency says it can’t find enough scientists free of conflicts within the FDA or other federal health agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Globe notes. So the FDA argues waivers are necessary to find qualified experts for its panels.

That viewpoint is endorsed by Kennedy, who has argued that Craig Mello and Phillip Sharp, Nobel-Prize-winning Massachusetts sci entists, would face limits on participating on FDA panels if stricter rules were successful, the paper writes. “Many of the nation’s best scientists wear both hats - working in an academic lab one day and consulting for a start-up biotech firm the next,” Kennedy said in May, rejecting a move to impose an “inflexible” cap on the number of waivers the FDA can grant.

Curt Furberg, a drug safety expert at Wake Forest University who served on the Avandia panel, expects congressional interest will lead the FDA to further refine what it considers to be a conflict of interest. Furberg is paid $200 annually to consult for the NIH on a diabetes study that includes Avandia. The FDA permitted him to serve as a temporary adviser for the Avandia panel but barred him from voting, the Globe notes.

He argues the FDA packs panels with clinicians more apt to keep questionable products on the market to help their patients but includes fewer drug safety proponents who argue for restrictions and market withdrawals. “My assumption is it is going to be tougher to stack the committee with people who have conflicts,” Furberg tells the Globe. “The first step is to limit the number of people with potential conflicts. The other is to define conflict more explicitly.”

A Hinchey spokesman reminds Pharmalot that the congressman has proposed such language each year for the past few years, but that “the Senate is always a stumbling block.”

Here is the actual language…

SEC. 729. None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to–

(2) make a certification under section 208(b)(3) of title 18, United States Code, for any such voting member.