POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN
Science magazine reports the following:
Seventy-seven U.S. scientists who have won a Nobel Prize [on May 21] asked Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, to “act urgently” to review a controversial NIH decision to terminate a grant that supported research into bat coronaviruses in China. NIH’s explanation for killing the grant was “preposterous,” the laureates write.
Thirty-one scientific societies have also written to Collins, calling on NIH “to be transparent about their decision-making process on this matter. … The action taken by the NIH must be immediately reconsidered.”
The nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, led by wildlife disease specialist Peter Daszak, was first awarded the grant in 2014. It was renewed in 2019. Now, however, NIH claims that it no longer aligns with the agency’s priorities. The move came after right-wing U.S. politicians and media suggested—without evidence—that the coronavirus causing the current pandemic escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, that employs a Chinese virologist who received funding from the grant. The termination also came a week after President Trump, when asked about the project, said: “We will end that grant very quickly.”
The following is the full text of, first, the Nobelists’ letter and, second, the letter from the scientific societies, organized by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology..
77 US Nobel Laureates in Science
May 21, 2020
Dear Secretary Azar and Director Collins:
The 77 signatories of this letter, American Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine, Chemistry, and Physics, are gravely concerned about the recent cancellation of a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Dr. Peter Daszak at the EcoHealth Alliance in New York. We believe that this action sets a dangerous precedent by interfering in the conduct of science and jeopardizes public trust in the process of awarding federal funds for research.
For many years, Dr. Daszak and his colleagues have been conducting highly regarded, NIH-supported research on coronaviruses and other infectious agents, focusing on the transmission of these viruses from animal hosts to human beings. Their work depends on productive collaborations with scientists in other countries, including scientists in Wuhan, China, where the current pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus arose. Now is precisely the time when we need to support this kind of research if we aim to control the pandemic and prevent subsequent ones.
As has now been widely reported, the grant to the EcoHealth Alliance was abruptly terminated by NIH on April 24, 2020, just a few days after President Trump responded to a question from a reporter who erroneously claimed that the grant awarded millions of dollars to investigators in Wuhan. Despite the misrepresentation of Dr. Daszak’s grant, despite the high relevance of the studies to the current pandemic, and despite the very high priority score that his application for renewal had received during peer review, the NIH informed Dr. Daszak and his colleagues that the grant was being terminated because “NIH does not believe that the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities.” Such explanations are preposterous under the circumstances.
We are scientists who have devoted our careers to research, both in medical and related scientific disciplines that bear on the overall health and well-being of society, as well as fundamental scientific research, much of it supported by NIH and other federal agencies. We take pride in our nation’s widely admired system for allocating funds based on expert review and public health needs. The abrupt revoking of the award to Dr. Daszak contravenes these basic tenets and deprives the nation and the world of highly regarded science that could help control one of the greatest health crises in modern history and those that may arise in the future.
We ask that you act urgently to conduct and release a thorough review of the actions that led to the decision to terminate the grant, and that, following this review, you take appropriate steps to rectify the injustices that may have been committed in revoking it.
Peter Agre Chemistry 2003
James P. Allison Medicine 2018
Sidney Altman Chemistry 1989
Frances H. Arnold Chemistry 2018
David Baltimore Medicine 1975
Barry Clark Barish Physics 2017
Paul Berg Chemistry 1980
J. Michael Bishop Medicine 1989
Elizabeth H. Blackburn Medicine 2009
Michael S. Brown Medicine 1985
William C. Campbell Medicine 2015
Mario R. Capecchi Medicine 2007
Thomas R. Cech Chemistry 1989
Martin Chalfie Chemistry 2008
Steven Chu Physics 1997
Elias James Corey Chemistry 1990
Robert F. Curl Jr. Chemistry 1996
Johann Deisenhofer Chemistry 1988
Andrew Z. Fire Medicine 2006
Edmond H. Fischer Medicine 1992
Joachim Frank Chemistry 2017
Jerome I. Friedman Physics 1990
Walter Gilbert Chemistry 1980
Sheldon Glashow Physics 1979
Joseph L. Goldstein Medicine 1985
Carol W. Greider Medicine 2009
David J. Gross Physics 2004
Roger Guillemin Medicine 1977
Leland H. Hartwell Medicine 2001
Dudley R. Herschbach Chemistry 1986
Roald Hoffmann Chemistry 1981
H. Robert Horvitz Medicine 2002
Louis J. Ignarro Medicine 1998
William G. Kaelin Jr. Medicine 2019
Eric R. Kandel Medicine 2000
Wolfgang Ketterle Physics 2001
Brian K. Kobilka Chemistry 2012
Roger D. Kornberg Chemistry 2006
Robert J. Lefkowitz Chemistry 2012
Anthony J. Leggett Physics 2003
Michael Levitt Chemistry 2013
Roderick MacKinnon Chemistry 2003
John C. Mather Physics 2006
Craig C. Mello Medicine 2006
William E. Moerner Chemistry 2014
Mario J. Molina Chemistry 1995
Ferid Murad Medicine 1998
Douglas D. Osheroff Physics 1996
James Peebles Physics 2019
Saul Perlmutter Physics 2011
William D. Phillips Physics 1997
H. David Politzer Physics 2004
Sir Richard J. Roberts Medicine 1993
Michael Rosbash Medicine 2017
James E. Rothman Medicine 2013
Randy W. Schekman Medicine 2013
Richard R. Schrock Chemistry 2005
Gregg L. Semenza Medicine 2019
Phillip A. Sharp Medicine 1993
Hamilton O. Smith Medicine 1978
George P. Smith Chemistry 2018
Horst L. Stormer Physics 1998
Thomas C. Sudhof Medicine 2013
Jack W. Szostak Medicine 2009
Joseph H. Taylor Jr. Physics 1993
Kip Stephen Thorne Physics 2017
Susumu Tonegawa Medicine 1987
Daniel C. Tsui Physics 1998
Harold E. Varmus Medicine 1989
Steve Weinberg Physics 1979
Rainer Weiss Physics 2017
Carl E. Wieman Physics 2001
Eric F. Wieschaus Medicine 1995
Torsten N. Wiesel Medicine 1981
Frank Wilczek Physics 2004
Robert Woodrow Wilson Physics 1978
Michael W. Young Medicine 2017
The Honorable Francis S. Collins
Director
National Institutes of Health
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20892May 20, 2020
Director Francis Collins:
We, the undersigned scientific organizations representing tens of thousands of members of the American biomedical research enterprise, are alarmed by the National Institutes of Health’s revocation of a peer-reviewed research grant for studies of coronaviruses by EcoHealth Alliance. Not only is this decision counterintuitive, given the urgent need to better understand the virus that causes COVID-19 and identify drugs that will save lives, but it politicizes science at a time when, if we are to stamp out this scourge, we need the public to trust experts and to take collective action.
The foundation of the American biomedical research enterprise rests on two principles: international collaboration and a robust peer-review process. Both must be vigilantly upheld. The abrupt revocation of the NIH grant for the EcoHealth Alliance concerns us for two primary reasons:
First, the decision seems to be a reaction to a theory about the origins of the COVID-19 virus that the intelligence community itself has publicly repudiated. EcoHealth Alliance at one point collaborated with a lab in Wuhan, China, which has recently been at the center of rumors about the origin of the pandemic. The overall goal of EcoHealth Alliance’s research project is to study coronavirus transmission from species to species. But the purpose of the research project has been conflated with these rumors. This is worrisome. International collaboration has propelled the American research enterprise to achieve vital innovations and discoveries; it is the gold standard for the scientific community. The United States is a beacon for the best and brightest minds, consistently attracting top scientists from around the world. However, with this incident, international collaboration is being portrayed as a threat. The scientific enterprise requires diversity, and American scientists depend on their international colleagues to pool resources, expertise, and ultimately make scientific breakthroughs.
Second, the decision sets a dangerous precedent by revoking a grant that was awarded based upon scientific merit without a justifiable rationale such as issues related to scientific or financial fraud or misconduct. This grant is highly and uniquely relevant to all NIAID priorities to address the current COVID-19 pandemic. Most extramural research funds are awarded through a robust peer-review process. Scientists, not politicians, determine the merit of grant applications, and grant recipients are expected to be careful stewards of taxpayer dollars. Throughout the lifetime of a grant, each recipient communicates regularly with scientific review officers at the funding agency and produces progress reports providing evidence that the work remains valuable and on track. This has been the norm and until April 24, 2020 was applied to the now terminated grant. That has now been breached and this action must not become the norm going forward.
The scientific community urges federal funding agencies and policymakers to ensure the transparency, openness, and collaborative nature of the American biomedical research enterprise. We call on the NIH to be transparent about their decision-making process on this matter. We urge federal funding agencies to safeguard the American biomedical research enterprise. The action taken by the NIH must be immediately reconsidered.
Respectfully,
The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
The Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research
The American Association for Anatomy
The American Institute of Biological Sciences
The American Physiological Society
The American Psychological Association
The American Society for Investigative Pathology
The American Society for Virology
The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
The Association of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Neurobiology Chairs
The Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities
The Association of Medical and Graduate Departments of Biochemistry
The Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health
The Biophysical Society
The Botanical Society of America
The Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences
The Endocrine Society
The Entomological Society of America
The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
The Genetics Society of America
The HIV Medicine Association
The Infectious Diseases Society of America
The Natural Science Collections Alliance
The North American Vascular Biology Organization
The Shock Society
The Society for Freshwater Science
The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
The Society for the Study of Reproduction
The Society of Toxicology
The Helminthological Society of Washington
OSA – The Optical SocietyCC: Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Kelvin Droegemeier
