Who knew that there was “an ongoing investigation by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) into the failure of NIH grantees to disclose financial ties to foreign governments. In 93% of those cases, the hidden funding came from a Chinese institution.” Fifty-four scientists have either resigned or have been fired!
One high profile case involves Charles Lieber, an inorganic chemist at Harvard. “It was the amount of money involved that drew our attention,” says Andrew Lelling, U.S. attorney for the Massachusetts district. Court documents indicate Lieber received $50,000 a month in salary and millions of dollars in research support. Lelling continues, “That is a corrupting level of money.” This investigation involved 399 scientists and 87 institutions. Sadly, nothing is free of the corruption of money.
“Michael Lauer, NIH’s head of extramural research”, I had to Google that – means outside the walls or boundaries of a town, college, or institution, released the ACD Working Group on Foreign Influences on Research Integrity Update on Friday, June 12, 2020. Some of the data:
- Total dollars of all active grants $164 million
- NIH grant support per scientist $678K ($383K to $1.29M)
- Number of active grants 285
- Number institutions contacted 87
- Acknowledged non-compliance 62 (71%)
Secondary source: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/us-prosecutor-leading-china-probe-explains-effort-led-charges-against-harvard-chemist
NIH report: https://acd.od.nih.gov/documents/presentations/06122020ForeignInfluences.pdf
The Polen Report 