UPDATE 1-US senator seeks med schools' disclosure policies

* Aimed at schools that passed on an earlier request

* Disclosure would show "there's nothing to hide" (Adds comments, some names of schools, background, byline)

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO, June 24 (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley on Wednesday asked 23 medical schools for information about their policies on conflicts of interest and requirements for disclosure of financial relationships between faculty members and the drug industry.

Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, said in a statement the schools did not respond to an earlier request made by the American Medical Student Association for the same information.

"There's a lot of skepticism about financial relationships between doctors and drug companies," Grassley said in a statement. "Disclosure of those ties would help to build confidence that there's nothing to hide."

Grassley has been aggressively pushing to limit the influence drugmakers have over the practice of medicine in the United States, after investigations last year revealed that prominent Harvard University psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Biederman and others failed to fully disclose payments from drug companies.

A report in April by the Institute of Medicine, one of the National Academies of Sciences that advises U.S. policymakers, called for doctors to strictly disclose research funding to strengthen protections against financial conflicts of interest.

The report called for virtually anyone involved in the practice of medicine -- academic medical centers, journals, professional societies, researchers and doctors -- to set up or strengthen conflict of interest guidelines.

According to Grassley, the American Medical Student Association had surveyed 149 medical schools, requesting their financial disclosure policies. Only 126 complied. Grassley is seeking policies from the schools that answered either "no response" or "decline to submit policies."

Schools on the list include Tulane University School of Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Howard University College of Medicine, Louisiana State University School of Medicine - New Orleans, New York College of Osteopathic Medicine of the New York Institute of Technology, University at Buffalo School of Medicine and the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

Institutions receiving research grants from the National Institutes of Health are required to track financial relationships.

Grassley co-sponsored a bill, "Physician Payments Sunshine Act," that would require payments from the drug industry to be publicly reported. (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Eric Walsh)