House lawmakers float plan to overhaul National Institutes of Health
House lawmakers float plan to overhaul National Institutes of Health
Republican leaders of two committees want to streamline agency’s 27 components, tighten policies
June 14, 2024
The Republican leaders of two committees in the House of Representatives are floating a proposal to streamline the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), make it more transparent, and curb potentially risky pathogen research, among other reforms.
The plan released today by the House Energy and Commerce Committee is one of several efforts taking shape in Congress to formally approve, or reauthorize, the $47.1 billion agency’s policies and programs for the first time since 2006. Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R–WA), chair of the commerce committee, and Robert Aderholt (R–AL), who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds NIH, write in STAT that they are responding to long-running criticisms of NIH’s structure.
The lawmakers also point to recent concerns such as the agency’s oversight of a grant to a U.S. nonprofit that funded bat virus research in Wuhan, China, that some blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. “We see the only way toward restoring trust in the NIH is through structural and policy reform that is thoughtful, strategic, and transformative,” the two write.
Rodgers’s proposal contains a mix of familiar and new ideas. For example, biomedical leaders, such as Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, who led NIH in the 1990s, have often decried NIH’s sprawling set of 27 institutes and centers, many focused on specific diseases. The Rodgers plan would shrink the 27 to just 15 using a more “holistic” approach.
Some groupings sort of make sense, such as merging neurological, eye, and dental and craniofacial research institutes into a single neuroscience and brain research institute. Others are head scratchers, such as putting five institutes, including minority health, nursing, and the Fogarty International Center into a National Institute on Health Sciences Research.
The plan would also split the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) into two parts: an infectious disease institute and one focusing on the immune system and arthritis. The move appears to be a response to concerns from Republicans that Anthony Fauci, who led NIAID for 38 years, held too much power. All NIH institute directors would be limited to two 5-year terms, an idea proposed previously by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Rodgers’s proposal contains a mix of familiar and new ideas. For example, biomedical leaders, such as Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, who led NIH in the 1990s, have often decried NIH’s sprawling set of 27 institutes and centers, many focused on specific diseases. The Rodgers plan would shrink the 27 to just 15 using a more “holistic” approach.
Some groupings sort of make sense, such as merging neurological, eye, and dental and craniofacial research institutes into a single neuroscience and brain research institute. Others are head scratchers, such as putting five institutes, including minority health, nursing, and the Fogarty International Center into a National Institute on Health Sciences Research.
The plan would also split the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) into two parts: an infectious disease institute and one focusing on the immune system and arthritis. The move appears to be a response to concerns from Republicans that Anthony Fauci, who led NIAID for 38 years, held too much power. All NIH institute directors would be limited to two 5-year terms, an idea proposed previously by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
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