A campaign by a conservative religious coalition has whipped up a controversy about funding by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) of research on HIV, sexuality, and risk related behaviour, alarming researchers and shedding new light on the business of mixing politics with science.
The Traditional Values Coalition, a right wing American church group, generated a list of NIH researchers who they claim are conducting “prurient” health research. The list was made available to members of the key, Republican controlled, House Energy and Commerce Committee as part of an ongoing investigation of objectionable NIH programmes.
The list in turn was handed over to the NIH along with a request for, according to NIH spokesperson John Burklow, a “written explanation of the medical benefits that could hope to be derived from these projects.”
The list contains the names and details of funding for over 200 projects that the coalition alleges concern “bizarre sexual practices” and include topics on HIV prevention, adolescent sexual behaviour, and cohabitation. The grant recipients identified belong to some of the country's most prestigious institutions, such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Emory universities.
Figure 1.
Henry Waxman: the actions of the NIH are “unacceptable”
Credit: AP PHOTO/DENNIS COOK
The NIH then contacted researchers “for additional information about their studies” and warned them that such a list “was circulating around Washington” and that they might come under congressional scrutiny, a move that has incensed some researchers and advocates.
Democrat Representative Henry Waxman said it was “unacceptable” for the NIH to require researchers to repeat their justifications for the awards they had already received after scientific peer review.
In a letter to the US health and human services secretary, Tommy Thompson, Mr Waxman, a frequent critic of the Bush administration, accused the coalition of “scientific McCarthyism” in compiling the “hit list” and the NIH of sending a dangerous message to the public and creating an “atmosphere of intimidation.”
Firing back at Mr Waxman, Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, called the NIH a “national endowment for the arts with a chemistry set” that “obviously requires more adult supervision.”
In a press release, Ms Lafferty defended the coalition's work, claiming it represents the American taxpayers, who will “deplore these smarmy projects.”
The written response of the NIH to Congress is expected by mid-November.