On May 21st local time, 77 Nobel Prize winners sent a joint letter to the President of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requesting immediate review of NIH ’s cancellation of funding for bat coronavirus The decision of the project.
For the reasons for terminating the grant, the explanation given by NIH is that this study no longer meets the agency ’s priorities. But the Nobel Prize winner called the interpretation “ridiculous” in the letter. They believe that now is the time to support such research.
On April 24th, NIH informed the Wildlife Disease Scientist Peter Daszak that the American Nonprofit Organization Ecological Health Alliance said it would terminate its research project on bat coronavirus Appropriation. NIH ’s funding for the project began in 2014 and will be renewed in 2019.
According to the American news website Politico, NIH also asked the Eco-Health Alliance to stop spending the remaining $ 369,819 of the 2020 funding.
The team of disease ecologist Peter Daszak has studied bats in caves for many years, sampling more than 10,000 bats and more than 2,000 other species, and identifying about 500 new coronaviruses.
Since 2015, the EcoHealth Alliance has received more than $ 3.7 million in funding to study the potential risk of coronavirus transmission to humans through bats. This work produced at least 20 academic papers, several of which were published in famous academic journals such as Nature.
The above 77 Nobel Prize winners stated in their letter that NIH ’s actions set a dangerous precedent by intervening in scientific behavior and undermine the public ’s trust.
They wrote that NIH Dean Francis Collins and HHS Minister Alex Aza should “act urgently and take actions that lead to the decision to terminate the grant Thoroughly review and publish the results of the review. After the review … Take appropriate measures to correct the injustice that may be caused when the grant is withdrawn. “
Politico reported that for NIH In particular, the sudden termination of funding for scientific research projects is very unusual, “usually such measures are only taken when there is evidence of scientific misconduct or financial impropriety”, and these circumstances did not occur in the project.
According to Science, another 31 scientific associations wrote to NIH Dean Collins, calling on NIH to “be transparent about their decision-making process on this issue … … The actions taken by NIH must be reconsidered immediately. ”
The 77 Nobel Prize winners co-signed to include the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics and American physicists James Peebles, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, American scientist James P. Allison, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry , The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics Barry Clark Barish (Barry Clark Barish) and so on.