WIKIMEDIA, CHRIS SPIELMANN
The National Institutes of Health has referred several allegations regarding foreign influence in biomedical research to federal investigators, according to a letter written by Daniel Levinson, inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services.
The document, which was published online by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) earlier this week (February 6), provides no specific information about the content of the allegations, but notes that most of the 12 recent referrals involve NIH-funded investigators at US universities who had failed to disclose foreign affiliations on grant applications.
“Foreign threats to our taxpayer-funded research and American intellectual property must be taken seriously,” Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, says in a statement. “The inspector general’s diligent work is a testament to that and further congressional oversight will provide some much-needed transparency to make sure these concerns don’t fall by the wayside.”
Grassley, who has long been pushing ...
