More than 100 National Institutes of Health (NIH) employees on June 9 released a declaration that calls on the agency’s director to roll back terminations of grants and the firings of workers.
Alexander Grinberg, a director at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and dozens of other NIH employees signed the so-called Bethesda Declaration using their real names. Others chose to remain anonymous due to what they described as fear of retaliation.
The employees told Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the NIH’s director, that they oppose policies that “undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe.” They said that the NIH has improperly targeted universities with actions such as terminating grant submissions; ending funding for research that focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); and firing NIH workers “without thought to their purpose or need.”…