Clinical experiments in the National Institutes of Health and the organizations that are money may continue, and patients may still travel to experimental sites to participate in research, despite the Trump administration’s restrictions on travel and communications, the acting director of the anti -National Information Agency, Dr. Matthew Memalli and said in a message Email to employees on Monday.
While the announcement of Dr. Memalli provided some clarification, he left many questions without an answer. Communications staff at the National Institutes of Health did not pick up the phone or respond to emails that request additional information.
Dr. Memalli’s memo confirmed that the critical purchases of the required laboratory supplies and any contract that require “anything directly related to human safety, human or animal health care, security, vital safety, biological security or information technology security” can continue.
Likewise, the e -mail said that the basic purchases and contracting operations needed to maintain research experiments that started before January 20 can “so that this work can continue, and we do not lose our investments in these studies.”
He described the stoppage imposed on mass communications and public manifestations as “short” and said that it does not apply to anything “related to emergency or decisive cases to maintain health.”
Scientists may also continue at the meeting to discuss the ongoing research that started before January 20, as long as it does not involve the general release of information or display data outside these individuals who are part of the research or facilitate/funding the research, “the memo said.
Traveling to such meetings may also continue if the meetings cannot be held remotely.
Last week, President Trump’s guidance resulted in the abolition of the panel meetings that decreased research requests for research and financing decisions, and stopped the publication of the report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which included elements in the outbreak of bird flu.
Other changes announced for federal employees last week included freezing employment, and an end to work remotely and closing the offices and programs of diversity, stocks and inclusion.
However, Dr. Memoli’s email said that employment in the National Health Institutes can continue if necessary “for instant human safety, human health or animal health care, security, biomedia, biomedics, or information technology security”, but it must be approved On the exemptions by the manager’s office.
The director’s memo also said that the papers can be presented to magazines and scientific meetings according to standard approval, although pre -print articles “remain suspended”.
The National Health Institutes has a budget of $ 48 billion, most of which are invested in medical research. While about 11 percent of the National Health Institutes budget supports the so -called internal projects carried out by scientists in their private laboratories, including many of them on the institute’s campus in Betisda, Maryland, the vast majority of money is granted for the so -called external research, It was granted competitively to about 300,000 external researchers in thousands of universities, medical schools and other institutions.
Gary W. Miller, Deputy Dean of the Research at the Faculty of Post for Public Health at Columbia University, said that the cancellation of last week for grant and grant review meetings casts a shadow over the future of research projects. The administration’s focus on eradicating efforts, fairness and integration in the government may have effects.
“It is difficult for us to explain these things,” said Dr. Miller. “We need instructions from the National Health Institutes to say,” Here is what we mean. “So if you have a current project that does something in mice, where it is unlike that. “
He said, “But what if I look at sex in mice?” This may be on the cutting block.
