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Related: About this forumNobel laureates and science groups demand NIH review decision to kill coronavirus grant
This is in the news section of the current issue of Science. I believe it may be open sourced.
The text is here: Nobel laureates and science groups demand NIH review decision to kill coronavirus grant
An excerpt:
Seventy-seven U.S. scientists who have won a Nobel Prize today asked Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Alex Azar, the secretary of Health and Human Services, to act urgently to review a controversial NIH decision to terminate a grant that supported research into bat coronaviruses in China. NIHs explanation for killing the grant was preposterous, the laureates write.
Thirty-one scientific societies have also written to Collins, calling on NIH "to be transparent about their decision-making process on this matter... The action taken by the NIH must be immediately reconsidered."
On 24 April, NIH informed the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, led by wildlife disease specialist Peter Daszak, that it was ending a grant, first awarded in 2014 and renewed in 2019 because it no longer aligned with the agencys priorities. The move came after conservative U.S. politicians and media suggestedwithout evidencethat the coronavirus causing the pandemic escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, that employs a Chinese virologist who had received funding from the grant. The termination also came 1 week after President Donald Trump, when asked about the project at a press conference, said: We will end that grant very quickly.
In their letter, the Nobel laureates say they are gravely concerned about that decision. We believe that this action sets a dangerous precedent by interfering in the conduct of science and jeopardizes public trust in the process of awarding federal funds for research. Now is precisely the time when we need to support this kind of research if we aim to control the pandemic and prevent subsequent ones.
Thirty-one scientific societies have also written to Collins, calling on NIH "to be transparent about their decision-making process on this matter... The action taken by the NIH must be immediately reconsidered."
On 24 April, NIH informed the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, led by wildlife disease specialist Peter Daszak, that it was ending a grant, first awarded in 2014 and renewed in 2019 because it no longer aligned with the agencys priorities. The move came after conservative U.S. politicians and media suggestedwithout evidencethat the coronavirus causing the pandemic escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, that employs a Chinese virologist who had received funding from the grant. The termination also came 1 week after President Donald Trump, when asked about the project at a press conference, said: We will end that grant very quickly.
In their letter, the Nobel laureates say they are gravely concerned about that decision. We believe that this action sets a dangerous precedent by interfering in the conduct of science and jeopardizes public trust in the process of awarding federal funds for research. Now is precisely the time when we need to support this kind of research if we aim to control the pandemic and prevent subsequent ones.
Never before in the history of our country, has there been a "President" bearing so much contempt for science.
If this situation is allowed to prevail, we are in for a very dark age.
History will not forgive us, nor should it.
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Nobel laureates and science groups demand NIH review decision to kill coronavirus grant (Original Post)
NNadir
May 2020
OP
Wawannabe
(5,634 posts)1. History will not forgive HIM
I didnt have anything to do with it!
Aint takin that one on my shoulders too.
NNadir
(33,475 posts)2. No, I mean history will not forgive US.
My signature line here reads:
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We... ...will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. - A. Lincoln
...No personal significance, or insignificance can spare one or another of us...
Collectively we have created the times in which a creature like Trump in the White House was possible.
History is not going to look at me and say, "he was in the resistance..." If, by some unexpected cause, there is anyone who is made aware of my existence in the year 2120, they will note that I was a part of this generation.