Health
Support for NIH peer review system
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Jan. 5, 2004
The AMA will send a message to Congress expressing concern about recent breaches of the National Institutes of Health peer review system, according to a policy approved last month by the House of Delegates.
The move comes in response to increasing government scrutiny of NIH-funded research into HIV/AIDS, risk-taking and sexual behavior. Many in the scientific community are concerned that such scrutiny could threaten the funding of these controversial projects.
"This is a real problem," said Ruth Covell, MD, a delegate from the section on medical schools and a professor at the University of California, San Diego. "Faculty members are being intimidated. All sorts of nasty things are going on."
Numerous organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, have issued similar statements in recent months expressing concern about what is viewed as politics interfering with science.
"There is a threat to our scientists," said MaryEllen Bradshaw, MD, a delegate from the American Assn. Of Public Health Physicians. "[We need] to support our colleagues who are doing the research that we are depending on for the practice of clinical medicine and for the practice of public health."
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2004/01/05/hlbf0105.htm.
