The main historical building on the campus of the National Institutes of American Health in Betsda, Maryland.Credit
In an unprecedented step, the National Institutes of American Health (NIH) began collective fines for the research grants that funded active scientific projects because they no longer meet the “agency’s priorities”.
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The instructions of the National Institutes of Health to determine the potential grants of projects that study the transgender population, sexual identity, diversity, shares and inclusion (DEI) in the scientific workforce, environmental justice and any other research that may be seen on discrimination on the basis of race or race, according to documents and sound recording that nature It happened. Grants to allocate universities financing in China and those related to climate change are also subject to scrutiny.
Bostoni, the Boston -Massachusetts, who was following her, says Brittani Charlton, the Harvard Public Health School in Boston, Massachusetts, who was following her, says at least 16 letters was already sent. Hundreds of others say, as two officials at the National Health Institutes of Health say, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the press.
“It is extremely concerned that the scholarships that have been examined by the scientific community will be canceled and considered the task and understanding of the world now because of the abolition of political ideology,” says Lisa Vazio, a cognitive scientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, who is studying wrong information. “Despite all this talk about freedom of expression, this direct censorship of scientific research.”
The procedures come during the second month of the presidency of US President Donald Trump; On his first day in office, Trump issued executive orders “Restore freedom of expression” for the American people and Defending women from the extremism of gender ideology. By banning federal funds that “enhance or implant gender ideology”.
National Information Institutes, which are the largest general financier of biomedical medical research in the world, did not respond to natureInquiries about ending grants, their legitimacy or the number of agency that you expected to send.
Category
Although many NIH research grants last longer, scientists generally receive their financing for one year at a time and are required to submit a report to the agency annually. Then the National Health Institutes employees review this report and can issue a continuation of financing.
The agency, based in Betisda, Maryland, asked its employees to review new and continuous projects for any Dei activities and put them in one of the four categories: projects that only support activities related to Dei (first category), projects that do not support these activities (the second category), and projects that do not support these activities, but they include some language related to Dei (category Third) and projects that do not support anything.
The guidance document obtained by nature Which describes the four categories must now be assembled all the granting of the National Institutes of Active Health.
The 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health should not be published in the first category, according to an indicative document obtained by nature And sent to some employees this week. The second category research with the main researcher or the institution must be re -negotiated to remove any Dei activities. If the work cannot be re -negotiated, the institute must seek to end the project, the document says.
The research can continue in the third and quarter -quarter category as long as any DEI language is stripped of the report or the interim report.
Although the steering document focuses on DEI activities, it also includes an appendix with examples of other research that the National Health Institutes did not support. For example, project financing research in China will be completed that touches “sexually transgender issues”.
This directive was formulated by the Deputy Director of the External Research Office (OER), Liza Bundesen, and was approved by the Director of the National Institutes of Health Matthew Memoli, according to an email message nature It happened. Bundesen, who took the leadership of Oer less than three weeks ago, leaves the agency on March 7, according to an official at the National Health Institutes, asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the press.
The guidelines do not determine how to determine whether the project is discriminatory, which led to a disagreement and anxiety between the agency’s employees, says another official at the National Institutes of Health. A lot of losing their functions is afraid, so this may lead to an explanation of excessive guidance of guidance, which will hinder the science more than “needs to be.” For example, do you provide an appropriate cultural care grant specifically for the Latin and Latin population, “discrimination? “
The annexes obtained bynature Description of NIH’s research.
Lost data
Tara McCai, who is studying the health of people from sexual and sexual minorities (LGBT+) at Vanderbelt University, has received an email from the National Informatics Institutes late on February 28. She said the agency was attracting funding for its project to track the health of more than 1,200 adults in the United States.
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The MCKAY study aims to understand the sources of stress and flexibility for individuals LGBT+, conduct a cognitive examination and collect blood samples to understand how they progress over the period of the decade. “Longitarian research gets its value of time points,” she says. She says that canceling part of the grant through the means will be lost follow -up data, as it says, “It reduces the value of the previous funds.”
McCai’s email said that a grant did not meet certain criteria and then referred to, including “transgender issues”, saying that these research programs “are often unscientific, and have a great return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans.” This language repeats exactly the internal guidance document of the National Institutes of Health.
McCai says her project does not focus on the experience of transgender people, but only includes people who are determined in this way. “This is not our population ready to leave it in our work.”