Congress Asks NIH to Justify More Than 160 Research Projects By JEFFREY BRAINARD
Washington
Congress this month asked the National Institutes of Health to justify its support of more than 160 academic studies that involve sexual behavior, HIV transmission, or alcohol and drug use, after several lawmakers criticized some research projects in those areas as an apparent waste of taxpayer money.
Such requests are not unprecedented, but 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.
Congress "asked NIH to explain the medical benefits hoped to be derived from the studies, and we're in the process of doing that," John T. Burklow, an NIH spokesman, said on Friday.
For now, lawmakers have not explicitly threatened to pull federal funds from the studies. But in July, the House of Representatives came within two votes of yanking money from four research projects related to sexual behavior, studies that some House members criticized as wasteful and improper.
The unusual vote shocked many advocates for academic research, who see this month's request as an attempt by some members of Congress to cast a chilling effect on such research.
The dispute continued on October 2 at a Congressional oversight hearing at which several House members again objected to some NIH studies, in addition to asking NIH officials about unrelated matters. The lawmakers said they were not trying to micromanage the NIH -- members of Congress typically defer to scientific experts at the NIH and other federal agencies to choose which projects to support.
But the lawmakers said that they wanted the agency to explain why it was supporting some studies on topics that to them seemed unrelated to the nation's most important health concerns.
Rep. Mike Ferguson, a New Jersey Republican, cited studies about the sexual health of older men and a research project on "prostitute masseuses." Another congressman, Rep. Joseph R. Pitts, a Pennsylvania Republican, cited a study of sexual arousal among people viewing pornography.
"It's difficult to comprehend what medical benefit, what public-health benefit, could be derived," said Mr. Ferguson at the hearing. "Perhaps there are some, but when you're weighing it against competing projects, it's very difficult to see how that can be justified."
The NIH received from Congress the list of hundreds of projects sometime after that hearing, Mr. Burklow said. The agency's staff members will be contacting some researchers on the list to gather information about the studies, he added.
Further details about the list were not immediately available on Friday. Mr. Burklow said he could not immediately say how many projects it contained and who in Congress had sent it to the agency.
A source close to the situation, who demanded anonymity, provided The Chronicle with a copy of the list said to have been sent to the NIH. But Mr. Burklow said he could not immediately confirm that The Chronicle's list was identical to the list that the NIH had received.
The list provided to The Chronicle contains grants provided to approximately 160 principal investigators at universities across the country since 1997. They were awarded through 9 separate institutes among the NIH's 27 institutes and centers. The combined dollar value of all the grants appears to be a small fraction of the NIH's annual budget of $27.2-billion.
It was unclear if the list contained the projects cited by Mr. Ferguson and other congressmen at the October 2 hearing. Mr. Ferguson's spokesman, A. Bailey Wood, said he had no information to provide about the list.
At the October 2 hearing, the NIH's director, Elias A. Zerhouni, told Mr. Pitts, "There's clearly a need for us to be transparent and open and making sure that you're comfortable because it would be detrimental for all of us if a small portfolio of the agency was opaque to taxpayers."