Straight talk with...Charles Grassley

What would a trim 75-year-old grain farmer have to say about drug safety and the payments given to medical researchers by drug companies? Lots, if he happens to be Charles Grassley, who has represented the state of Iowa in the US Senate since 1980. As the senior Republican on the Senate’s finance committee and as a senior member of the judiciary committee, he has carved out a role as a relentless watchdog who acts as a magnet for whistleblowers in government agencies ranging from the US Department of Defense to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In the last several years, Grassley has set his investigative sights on issues relating to medicine. A leading critic of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since the surprise withdrawal from the market of Merck's painkiller Vioxx in 2004, Grassley is now focusing on university researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) who haven't been properly reporting income from drug companies. Meredith Wadman asked the senator what he hopes to achieve through his investigations.