Congress Must Reject Siphoning of NIH Funds to DoW
According to statements from both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, officials at the Department of War (DoW) signed an interagency agreement that calls for moving billions of dollars a year in funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the DoW.
Congress recently stood up to the White House Office of Management and Budget’s attempt to politicize the grantmaking process. Now those same leaders in Congress need to stand up to the Administration’s attempt to thwart the long history of broad bipartisan support for NIH and NIAID. Failure to do so risks undermining both the lifesaving research that has been the hallmark of NIAID and Congress’ Constitutional authority.
It was reported that NIH signed the agreement, but statements from both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees say neither Congress nor the American people were proactively notified of the agreement, which would move billions of dollars that Congress provided to NIAID for critical research to develop treatments and cures for infectious diseases to instead fund DoW initiatives.
It is imperative that Congress investigate and make certain that this agreement never gets implemented. Congress must ensure that the funds appropriated for the essential research at NIAID to protect the health and wellbeing of the American people are used as intended.
