Fortress US

Last year, Cornell University researcher Kathleen Rasmussen enlisted two physicians from Bangladesh to fill out her research team in international maternal and child nutrition, a program funded by a training grant through the National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center (FIC).Both men are married, both have infant children, medical degrees, research backgrounds and jobs at non-governmental organizations committed to seeing them bring US nutrition science back to Bangladesh, as terms of the Fogarty grants require. One man, with his wife and child, arrived in New York on time in September, after an easy slide through the visa system. He is of the Hindu faith. The other, a Muslim, is still in Bangladesh, and no one knows where his visa is.Rasmussen does not know who to blame for the disappearance of the Muslim physician's visa, which was granted in September after three tries, then disappeared into the security checking system. "The administrative incompetence is substantial," the Cornell scientist says. "I can't tell you this is oriented toward religion, only that these guys have identical credentials and one of them is here and the other is not. It's not okay, whatever the reason is."Rasmussen's story has a familiar ring to researchers across the country. Heightened security concerns translate into months of delay for international students and scholars seeking permission to visit the US, and sometimes result in denial. "Some very good students were having such trouble getting visas to come to Harvard that they threw up their hands and went to Paris, instead," said Everett I. Mendelsohn, Harvard professor of the history of science. "The numbers are not large yet, but they indicate a pattern."Brendan O'Brien, director of Cornell's international office, says 15 students who went home for the holidays have yet to return to school, due to visa delays. The result, said O'Brien, is research left half-done, and laboratories working with partial staffs."If different security procedures are necessary, I would hope they would do them in an efficient manner that does not endanger time-sensitive research," O'Brien said. "A lot of research is going to be lost."Cornell has appealed to its congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) for help in getting the Bangladeshi physician into the country. Fogarty officials tried, but got nowhere, even though the funding came from the NIH agency whose mission is to make sure American science participates in the global research community. "From the point of view of someone trying to run a government grant to meet government purposes with government money, to have the left and right hands working against each other is very disturbing," Rasmussen said.The problem is likely to come up as the Fogarty advisory board meets today in Washington for one of the agency's three annual convocations. But something of a skeleton crew may be present—four of seven outside members have rotated off the board, including, possibly, Cutberto Garza, also a nutrition scientist at Cornell. Garza's name was sent to the office of Tommy Thompson, secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), for approval, but Fogarty board information officer Irene Edwards said that as of Monday there was still no certainty.In another scenario becoming increasingly familiar to scientists, Thompson's office has already rejected some Fogarty board nominations, Gerald T. Keusch, director of the center, said in a recent interview. The Fogarty board is adding a member this year, bringing the complement to 13 and Keusch said he was confident that names now in Thompson's office would be approved. "Prior to that, there were some names not approved," he said, but HHS gave no reason for rejecting the nominees.Garza said he was planning to go to today's meeting, but wasn't sure whether he would be ad hoc, approved or on his way out. Just returned from a series of overseas visits, the Cornell researcher said he encountered hostility over American treatment of international scholars. "The environment outside of government is getting increasingly difficult, and the difficulty stems from the growing resentments that individuals at professional levels are now feeling," Garza said.

Fortress US

Growing frustration over losing research and good will due to barriers to foreign scholars.

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