77 US Science Nobel Laureates, Researchers Urge NIH to Restore Grant for COVID-19 Project in Wuhan

New Delhi: As many as 77 American scientists and researchers, many of them Nobel laureates, have urged the National Institutes of Health (NIH) director to “act urgently” and review the US-based agency’s decision to terminate a grant for research in China into how the bat coronavirus  moves from bats to humans. NIH is the nodal agency under the US health department and is responsible for public health and biomedical research.

According to a report in the journal, Science,  in a letter to Francis Collins, director, NIH, and Alex Azar, secretary, health and human services,  the scientists have termed the decision  to terminate the grant to wildlife disease specialist Peter Daszak, as “preposterous” .

“For many years, Dr. Daszak and his colleagues have been conducting highly regarded, NIH supported research on coronaviruses and other infectious agents, focusing on the transmission of these viruses from animal hosts to human beings. Their work depends on productive collaborations with scientists in other countries, including scientists in Wuhan, China, where the current pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus arose. 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.”

The NIH terminated the grant on April 24, after some conservative US politicians, including sections of the big media, continuously claimed, without citing any evidence, that the COVID-19 pandemic ‘escaped’ from a lab in Wuhan in China, which employs a Chinese virologist who was getting funding from this grant. Co-incidentally, the NIH’s decision came days after US President Donald Trump, at a press conference, said: “We will end the grant very quickly.”

Expressing anger at the axing of such a crucial scientific research grant, the Nobel laureates wrote:

“We are scientists who have devoted our careers to research, both in medical and related scientific disciplines that bear on the overall health and well-being of society, as well as fundamental scientific research, much of it supported by NIH and other federal agencies. We take pride in our nation’s widely admired system for allocating funds based on expert review and public health needs. The abrupt revoking of the award to Dr. Daszak contravenes these basic tenets and deprives the nation and the world of highly regarded science that could help control one of the greatest health crises in modern history and those that may arise in the future.”

Earlier, too,  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,” the Science reports said.

The NIH grant, first awarded in 2014, was renewed in 2019. It was axed by NIH, citing that “it no longer aligned with the agency’s priorities.” The move is being seen by the US scientific community as an attempt to “disrupt” a long-standing collaboration. 

Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York City non-profit, and his colleagues have for the past 15 years collaborated with a leading Chinese virologist who studies coronaviruses that infect bats. The virologist, Shi Zhengli, is based at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers first identified SARS-CoV-2 or the novel coronavirus.

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.”

The letter from the scientific societies was organised by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. “Our aim with this effort is to stand up for a scientific enterprise that should be free of political influence on sound scientific research,” said Benjamin Corb, public affairs director for ASBMB, in a statement. 

“The continued politicisation of science during this pandemic crisis is an alarming trend that is risking not only the integrity of science, but also the lives of citizens,” it read.

 There is widespread apprehension among the global scientific community that the crucial research project has become a casualty of “overtly political attempt by the trump administration to shift attention away from its own troubled response to the pandemic and blame China,” another report I the Science said.

“There’s a culture of attacking really critical science for cheap political gain,” says Dennis Carroll, who recently retired as director of the emerging threats division of the U.S. Agency for International Development, is quoted as saying in the report.

The death toll due to COVID-19 in the US is nearing the 1 lakh-mark, raising questions over the Trump administrations’ handling of the pandemic. According to Johns Hopkins University, so far 96,000 people have died in the US.