NIH officials began contacting Principal Investigators (PIs) of nearly 200 already-approved or funded projects that deal with topics such as sexual behavior and drug abuse to inform the grantees that NIH has been questioned about the grants by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce and to alert the PIs that NIH has been asked to supply the committee with more information about these specific grants. This committee has jurisdiction over NIH. [News reports on Oct. 31 indicate that the list was given to NIH by a committee staff who did not have committee authorization to do so and that the committee does not plan to ask NIH for information on these specific grants. The committee is, however, planning a review of NIH management overall.]

The list of grants had apparently been provided to the committee by a conservative advocacy group called the Traditional Values Coalition. The research grants were awarded from 1997 to the present to PIs at universities across the nation and were awarded by nine institutes among NIH's 27 institutes and centers. Over the past two weeks, NIH staffers have been reviewing the list of individual researchers and awards provided by the House committee to NIH, which in turn contacted some grantees to obtain information that might assuage lawmakers' concerns about the merits of the research.

An October 27 Associated Press story by Mark Sherman gave high visibility to this matter through its publication and broadcast in dozens of national, regional, and local media outlets earlier this week. And in the science press, Jocelyn Kaiser of SCIENCE magazine's online news service, SCIENCE NOW, reported, "Members of the behavioral research community appear most shaken by the attention to the list, which is laden with behavioral studies. They say they're concerned that Congress may try to override the peer-review process and curtail potentially valuable public health research."

It is not uncommon for federal research agencies to receive inquiries from members of Congress, but as the CHRONICLE reported, "the number of studies included in the latest inquiry appears to involve significantly more projects than past requests from Congress to any federal agency that supports academic research." Last Friday, NIH spokesman John T. Burklow stated that Congress had asked NIH to explain the medical benefits expected from these studies. Burklow said NIH was pulling that information together.

Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), who serves on the committee's Subcommitte on Health, is deeply concerned about this matter, characterizing the list as the equivalent of "scientific McCarthyism." He expressed "outrage" in an October 27 letter [650Kb PDF file] to Tommy Thompson, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS encompases NIH. Waxman, who is the ranking minority member of the Government Reform Committee, alleges that HHS staff compiled the list in an "inside job" and he requested an investigation in his first letter as well as in an October 28 follow-up letter [163Kb PDF file] to HHS. One of the first biomedical research associations to publicly respond to this latest congressional assault is the Association of American Medical Colleges, whose president issued a formal statement on October 29. The American Association for the Advancement of Science also issued a forceful statement.

Legislators have not threatened to pull the NIH funds from these studies as of yet. But, as Hillsman's column (see above) states, the House of Representatives came within two votes of defunding research projects related to sexual behavior. These studies had been criticized as wasteful and improper by some House members and were the subject of relentless questioning during a congressional oversight hearing this October at which NIH Director Elias Zerhouni firmly defended the peer-review system that approved the grants.

ASA continues to be actively engaged with other members of the social science community to monitor and proactively respond to this specific development and to general threats to high quality peer-reviewed social science that promises to enhance Americans' well-being and health. ASA's elected Council in August 2003 passed a resolution opposing any attempts to restrict NIH support for high quality, peer-reviewed research, including public-health related research on sexual function and behavior. Council asked the "Executive Office to oppose such actions publicly and to take all appropriate steps to help ensure these studies are not defunded.”