Congress can cure ‘equity’ outbreak at National Institutes of Health

OPINION:

Already under intense scrutiny from Congress over its funding support for virus research in Wuhan prior to the pandemic, the National Institutes of Health has released a new strategic plan that’s sure to cause queasiness, heartburn, and loss of appetite on Capitol Hill.

Rather than refocusing the agency on its core mission — “making important discoveries that improve health and save lives” — this new plan will use the agency’s immense funding and reach to spread the far-left agenda throughout its workforce and beyond. Inefficiency, underperformance and discrimination will be the side effects of this new effort. But this infection can be stopped before it takes hold. The cure is Congress.

Recently, under the guise of advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, the acting director of NIH proudly announced the agency’s effort to embed the political ideology of the left into everything it does. Not only does NIH plan to force this destructive, meritless ideology on its own staff but also on the researchers and scientists of other institutions that rely on its financial support. Now, rather than seeking to fund research that offers the best hope of curing disease, NIH will seek to fund research that offers the best chance of advancing the left’s radical beliefs.

The announcement was issued by an acting director because, to date, the Biden administration has been unable to persuade anyone to take the job of leading NIH after the previous director left in 2021. With this new overtly political plan underway and guaranteed to draw even more congressional and public scrutiny, it’s no wonder no one will take the job.

Driving NIH’s efforts is a pair of executive orders issued by President Biden in 2021 and, more recently, last month. The latest order, executive order 14091, commands virtually all major federal agencies to create new, permanent units tasked with ensuring “equitable outcomes” in all facets of federal government business. The order also calls for the creation of “equity action plans” that outline how the agency will use all of its resources and power to advance equal outcomes over equal opportunity. Those plans aren’t due until September, but NIH turned its homework in early, eager to get started.

Lest there be any concern that the administration might use this new push in a way that might benefit it politically, the president’s order places Susan Rice, his domestic policy adviser, in charge of the whole effort.

Equal opportunity and a merit-based system are being replaced with a new system that seeks to benefit those the administration labels as “underserved” by discriminating against those the administration does not. When the government picks winners and losers based on ideology rather than excellence, everyone loses.

Apart from the political and constitutional implications of this new effort, practical considerations abound, including the costs it will create through inefficiency.

NIH’s boast of the 100-person team it assembled to put this plan together — pulling these folks away from lifesaving work so they could focus instead on advancing the president’s political agenda — doesn’t inspire confidence.

At the end of the day, through this executive order, the president is injecting leftist politics into the heart of all federal agencies. While NIH may be patient zero, other agencies have surely been infected, and their symptoms will begin to show soon.

The good news for America is this executive order and agency efforts to advance it are under the microscope of the Foundation for Government Accountability. Last week, to help expose this new virus planted in the heart of all federal agencies, we launched an investigation, filing Freedom of Information Act requests targeting nearly two dozen agencies. We will share the information we gather with Congress and others to help stop this effort.

Meanwhile, NIH is already under the lens of strong leadership in Congress. House Republicans working to get to the bottom of the Wuhan funding scandal should also scrutinize this new effort as well — before it leads to permanent damage.

There is a new outbreak at NIH. But Congress can cure it.

• Stewart Whitson is legal director for the Foundation for Government Accountability.