Dr. Holick said last week that he felt no conflict of interest whatsoever, because the $50,000 a year is an unrestricted grant.

This award provides an unrestricted grant to support remarkable artists and the influential work that they create.

One of the brightest spots in the current drive was an unrestricted grant from the Starr Foundation, a contributor to the fund since 1980.

The program rewards creative people with unrestricted five-year grants of $30,000 to $75,000 a year.

That was augmented last year by about $2.5 million in restricted and unrestricted grants and donations.

Reuters, for example, gave Global Voices an unrestricted grant in January 2006.

The award is an unrestricted grant of up to $1,000 annually.

In 2008 he was awarded an unrestricted grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

The three societies say that they accept only unrestricted grants from drug companies and that there has been no undue influence.

Rogers is also the recipient of an unrestricted educational grant from Servier.