The Washington Monthly's Monthly Journalism Award January/February 2004 David Willman "Stealth Merger" Los Angeles Times, December 7, 2003 In a comprehensive, 12,000-word story that took a year to assemble, Los Angeles Times reporter David Willman examines the conflicts of interest of National Institutes of Health scientists. With increasing frequency, Willman's report, "Stealth Merger," found, these researchers charged with running the clinical trials to determine whether drugs are safe are also paid consultants of the pharmaceutical companies which produce the same drugs. Willman raises disturbing questions about whether deaths that happened during clinical trials run by these researchers might have been avoided, and the trials stopped earlier, if the scientists had not also been on the drug companies' payrolls.