Dr. Charles Nemeroff’s name is synonymous with what can go wrong when scientists who receive funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. government’s $31 billion a year medical research arm, fail to disclose business relationships that pose a conflict of interest.

In 2008 came the embarrassing revelation that the prominent psychiatrist accepted nearly $1 million in consulting fees from Glaxo Smith Kline over six years while also leading NIH research on that same company’s antidepressant treatments. Nemeroff was also the chair of the psychiatry department at Emory University.

The NIH is trying to ...