Fraudbusters back at NIH; after a stint on Capitol Hill with Congressman John Dingell, Walter Stewart and Ned Feder are back in the lab.

Fraudbusters Back at NIH WALTER STEWART AND NED FEDER, the duo who have made a name for themselves as self-appointed fraud-busters, have been quietly sent down from Capitol Hill and are now back in their basement lab at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda--their status as science's policemen uncertain.

For more than a year now, Stewart and Feder have been working for Representative John D. Dingell (D-MI) on detail from NIH. Recently, Dingell had a chance to ask that their detail to the House subcommittee on oversight and investigations be extended. He declined.

Why? An aside said only that "somebody at HHS [the Department of Health and Human Services] said we'd had Stewart and Feder long enough. . . . I couldn't argue with their position." Or at any rate, the Dingell subcommittee chose not to argue. The aide said only that, "Walter was doing things that were not of immediate interest to the subcommittee."

Instead of working for Dingell full time, the two fraud investigators will be available "as needed," but not more than 2 or 3 days a month. …