u/42Emily

https://thehill.com/newsletters/health-care/5935074-democrats-demand-omb-rescind-grant-rule/amp/

“The damage of this obvious power grab by political leadership in the Trump Administration threatens to inflict severe harm on the nation’s biomedical research enterprise by usurping the critical role of scientific experts in the approval and funding of grants at NIH,” Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote in a letter to NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya.

“We fear this rule will lead to fewer cures, fewer clinical trials, and more exposure to dangerous public health hazards.”

The letter was signed by Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), Health Subcommittee ranking member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ranking member Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.).

The proposed rule, rolled out with little fanfare late last month, would codify many policies the administration attempted through executive order and at the individual agency level. It would de-emphasize peer review, and give wide latitude to political appointees to decide what research will “advance the President’s policy priorities.”

The rule would ban research on diversity, equity and inclusion or gender as grant conditions, and would place a broad prohibition on international scientific collaborations.

“The proposed rule will inject partisanship into agency decisions at an unprecedented level, undermining your repeated promises to ‘depoliticize NIH,’” the Democrats wrote, saying the rule would give the Trump administration “license to align NIH spending with their political preferences instead of the funding’s promise of scientific merit.”

The White House has characterized the proposed rule as necessary to improve transparency and cut down waste, fraud and abuse across all of government. The rule change was proposed by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is led by Director Russell Vought.

The Democrats demanded answers from Bhattacharya on a host of questions and called on him to demand OMB rescind the rule, but there’s not a lot the Republican-controlled Congress can or will do about the rule.

If enacted, it will likely face legal challenges.

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