The National Institutes of Health has published a clarification for its grantees about the prohibition on using its funding for lobbying activities. The notice follows accusations made in March by congressional Republicans that NIH might be funding research that constitutes illegal lobbying activities.
In a blog post published on 24 May, Sally Rockey, head of NIH’s Office of Extramural Research, said the ban had been in place for a long time, but the agency wanted to raise the visibility of the topic in light of “changes” last year and recurrent questions about what is and isn’t allowed under the prohibition.
Jack Kingston, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee that determines NIH funding, wrote to NIH director Francis Collins on 5 March to request that the agency review all of its grants within 30 days and halt anything seen as advocacy. NIH is still formulating its response to the lawmaker, and an agency representative says the reply “keeps morphing”.
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