NIH Staffers Risk Their Careers With Open Letter

More than 300 current and former National Institutes of Health employees have taken the unusual step of publicly protesting deep funding cuts, staff firings, and "policies that undermine the NIH mission." Details:

• Read the open letter here. It was sent to NIH director Jay Bhattacharya, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and lawmakers who oversee the agency, reports Reuters. Bhattacharya is testifying before a Senate panel on Monday about his agency's budget.

• More than 90 people put their signatures on the letter and thus put their jobs in jeopardy, reports the AP. About 250 others signed anonymously.
• The letter, dubbed the "Bethesda Declaration," echoes the style of the Great Barrington Declaration, which Bhattacharya co-authored during the pandemic to demand looser restrictions, notes STAT News. "We want Jay Bhattacharya to see himself in this letter," said Jenna Norton of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, who signed the letter. "He's called for academic freedom and a culture of dissent. If he's the person that he claims to be, I think he has to listen to us."
• Signers called on Bhattacharya to restore grants that were cut for what they say were political, not scientific, reasons. The letter says the Trump administration has terminated 2,100 research grants totaling about $12 billion.
• The NIH is the biggest public funder of biomedical research in the world, notes Reuters, but the Trump administration has proposed slashing its annual budget by $18 billion, or 40%.

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