The AAMC filed a Nov. 19 amicus brief (PDF) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in American Public Health Association et al. v NIH, a case opposing the sudden termination of hundreds of research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The amicus brief provides the perspective of the research community on the devastating impact of sudden, arbitrary grant terminations on the stability of the research enterprise and the careers of scientists. It asks the court to affirm the district court’s decision directing the NIH to reinstate grants unlawfully terminated based on a purported “change in agency priorities” and to cease delaying, suspending, or cancelling steps needed to review applications for future or ongoing NIH grant funding.
“Grant terminations en masse, for reasons wholly unconnected to science, threaten to destabilize the entire system and, with it, the future health of the nation,” the brief asserts. “If federal research grants can be cancelled midstream based on fluctuating political views or policy preferences, that will undermine the government’s longstanding collaborative relationship with academic institutions to advance scientific progress and improve health.”
The brief was also signed by the Association of American Universities, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the American Council on Education, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, COGR, and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
The AAMC previously filed an amicus brief with the same co-amici in this case when it was heard in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts [refer to Washington Highlights, May 2].