Members of the NIH’s recently reconstituted scientific management review board had strong reactions to congressional Republicans' proposals to overhaul the agency, calling them “depressing” and “alarming” during the board’s meeting this week — the first in nearly a decade. Congress created the board in the 2006 NIH Reform Act, charging it with reviewing the NIH’s structure and research portfolio and making recommendations to the NIH director. Dr. Andrea Hayes Dixon, chair of the board and dean of Howard University’s College of Medicine, said the agency needs to reestablish trust and improve communication with the GOP lawmakers who want to subject the NIH to more oversight, consolidate its bureaucracy and rein in its funding. “I think that’s even more evident in the comments that the senators and the congressmen made,” she said, referring to House and Senate Republicans' NIH reform proposals. “We were all in the room sort of scratching our heads, like, how could they possibly think that?” Reconstituting the review board was a key part of the GOP proposals released earlier this year by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Cassidy is likely to become the HELP chair in January. Rodgers is retiring from Congress, but her successor on the Energy and Commerce panel is expected to continue her push. The board fell dormant under former NIH Director Francis Collins, sparking criticism from House and Senate Republicans interested in increasing NIH oversight. The 2024 omnibus appropriations law includes a directive to restart it. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra appointed members in September. NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli, whom President-elect Donald Trump could replace, didn’t discuss the high-stakes environment during her opening remarks at the board meeting, instead asking the members to investigate how the agency could improve collaboration, data-sharing, assistance to underserved communities and public trust. What’s next? Rodgers’ plan to impose five-year term limits for NIH directors and consolidate its 27 centers to 15 is part of the House version of the as-yet-unresolved bill to fund the agency in fiscal 2025. Whoever Trump chooses to run HHS could replace the board’s members. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist and Trump adviser, says he wants to fire hundreds of NIH staffers, although it’s unclear how he would do that given their civil service protections.
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