NIH privatization under fire

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) plan to put thousands of scientific support jobs up for bid by outside contractors drew fire this week from agency watchdogs.In a letter sent to Joshua Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Tommy Thompson, secretary of Health and Human Services, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and the Maryland congressional delegation complained that the outsourcing plan would put NIH at risk because it "meddles with scientists, opens the door to unnecessary security threats, and seriously undermines morale and productivity."The NIH effort is part of the Bush administration's effort to privatize as much government work as possible. Over the next few years, outsourcing could affect as many as 4600 jobs on the sprawling 327-acre NIH campus in Bethesda, Md., just outside the US capital.Today (October 22), NIH will announce whether an outside firm or current employees will provide real estate management services at several agency sites. About 700 jobs are at stake, agency spokesman Don Robusky said. The first competition for administering and staffing the agency's $18 billion extramural grants program was won last month by the in-house team, but at a cost of 40 jobs. "It is our intention to be as competitive as possible and to win competitions against the private sector in an open and fair process," NIH Deputy Director of Management Charles E. Leasure, Jr., said. But "if we find ways to increase efficiencies and improve our operations, we have an obligation to do so."In July, Leasure said that NIH planned to take bids over the coming year on services ranging from the agency's highly specialized fire department to its veterinary and lab equipment repair staffs. His original plan also called for asking key scientific personnel to compete with outside contractors, including NIH staffers drawn through the intramural research fellow program and category 2 senior scientists. Those jobs are "inherently commercial," according to an internal committee report approved by NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni.But a firestorm of protest at the agency has put the latter plans on hold, according to the Waxman letter. "These two proposals would allow outside contractors to select many of the key scientists on the NIH campus," the legislators wrote. "NIH's future is jeopardized when political leaders fail to respect the scientists and scientific processes needed to produce breakthrough treatments and other medical advances."An anonymous letter from an NIH senior scientist posted on Waxman's Government Reform Committee Web site triggered the protests on Capitol Hill. "The morale of my staff has never seemed lower," the scientist wrote. Outsourcing "will not save money. This will decrease, not increase, work efficiency." There are between 8 and 10 support personnel for every senior research scientist at NIH.At a joint Senate–House hearing on the future of biomedical research held in early October, former NIH Chief Harold Varmus expressed concerns that the outside contracting process was sending a "wave of unnecessary anxiety and bureaucratic duplication to the agency."Harold Shapiro, president emeritus of Princeton University and chair of an Institute of Medicine committee studying how to reorganize NIH's structure, warned that forcing workers to competitively bid on their own jobs threatened to "undermine some of the vitality of the organization." "If they actually start doing this to a large number of people, it will have a devastating effect," a senior scientist at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases told The Scientist this week on condition of anonymity. "Everyone will start looking over their shoulders."Signers of the Waxman letter included John Dingell, ranking minority member on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Senators Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who represents Bethesda in Congress. There have been growing protests in the suburban Maryland district over NIH plans to build a biohazard level 3 research facility.Privatizing the agency's 50-person in-house fire department will only fuel those fears, according to Richard Laubach, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2419, which represents about 660 employees at NIH. "It's a hazmat unit that knows how to handle pathogens and biological agents," he said. "Once we lose that expertise, how will we ever replace it?"Laubach also worries about the national security implications of turning over maintenance of the new facility to outside contractors. "We will have no idea who those people are," he said. "Anybody with half a mind to do so could snag something and walk out."

NIH privatization under fire

Congressional Democrats warn of outsourcing plan's effect on science, security, and morale

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