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Washington, D.C. — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials Subcommittee Chair Buddy Carter (R-GA) sent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan a letter demanding additional details regarding the agency’s efforts to designate additional per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) substances as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). KEY LETTER EXCERPT: “We are particularly concerned with the scope of any new designations made by EPA, including the EPA’s ability to obtain and use the data necessary to understand the technical and economic feasibility of such a designation. “The Agency’s purposeful cooperation with scientific experts, who know these substances, is relevant to the cleanup levels for which those sites might be subject and will, ultimately, determine how quickly these sites will be cleaned up under CERCLA’s strict, joint and several, and retroactive liability scheme. For these reasons, it is imperative this Committee follow up with you and seek additional information about the potential scope of additional actions under CERCLA to address PFAS releases.”   BACKGROUND: PFAS are not a single chemical, but rather an entire group of 14,000 synthetic chemicals used in a wide variety of common applications.   On April 17, 2024, the EPA designated two PFAS substances, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), as “hazardous substances” under CERCLA.   During Administrator Regan’s appearance before the Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials, he was asked if the EPA would designate PFAS substances beyond PFOA and PFOS as “hazardous substances.” In response, he stated, “We will.” Later, the EPA stated the agency “will go through a rulemaking process” for the designation of additional PFAS chemicals as CERCLA hazardous substances.  Given that PFOA and PFOS are just a fraction of the entire PFAS class, the Chairs are demanding details regarding the EPA’s efforts to designate additional PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances under CERCLA, and whether they will be transparent with the public regarding those efforts. CLICK HERE to read the full letter.

Washington, D.C. — In a new letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Chair Bob Latta (R-OH), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) requested all communications between the agency and state broadband offices related to Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Initial Proposals. The letter comes amid concerns that NTIA is unlawfully pressuring states to rate regulate low-cost broadband plans required by the BEAD Program and following a May 15, 2024, hearing at which Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Alan Davidson committed to being more transparent about BEAD funding decision making.  KEY EXCERPT :  “Based on anecdotal evidence from different entities involved in the process, it appears that the NTIA may be evaluating initial proposals counter to Congressional intent and in violation of the law. Several Members of Congress have directly raised to you that the NTIA, through its review of initial proposals, is unlawfully regulating the rate of broadband through BEAD’s low-cost service option in direct conflict with the IIJA, which states: ‘Nothing in this title may be construed to authorize the Assistant Secretary or the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to regulate the rates charged for broadband service.’9 During Senate floor debate on the IIJA, Members of Congress agreed that this language meant that ‘no rate regulation of broadband services would be authorized or permitted by the NTIA or the Assistant Secretary who leads the NTIA as part of the state broadband grant program.’” “States have reported that the NTIA is directing them to set rates and conditioning approval of initial proposals on doing so. This undoubtedly constitutes rate regulation by the NTIA. Indeed, one state publicly posted the NTIA’s feedback that the agency would not approve their initial proposal without ’an exact price or formula’ for the state’s low-cost option. Without visibility into the approval process, Congress in unable to determine how widespread this practice is. When asked about this at oversight hearings, your responses have failed to provide clarity.”  BACKGROUND:  Congress appropriated an unprecedented $42.45 billion through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) for the NTIA to administer the BEAD program.   The program was intended to ensure that all Americans, specifically those in unserved or underserved areas, have access to broadband.   The NTIA is responsible for managing and distributing this money to the states and territories.  The IIJA prohibits the NTIA from rate regulation.  The IIJA established a process for how states receive money from the NTIA for this program.   First, each of the 56 individual states and territories (state entities) were required to submit an Initial Proposal explaining their proposed process for awarding the funds.   The NTIA was then tasked with reviewing and approving each individual states entities’ proposal, after which funds would be allocated to the state to award.   Some states report that the NTIA is conditioning approval of their Initial Proposals on setting a specific price for low-cost broadband plans despite the prohibition on rate regulation.  Despite every state entity having submitted their initial proposals by the December 27, 2023, deadline, the NTIA has only approved 16 initial proposals as of the date of this letter.   Due to the opaque nature of the NTIA’s review and approval process, the Committee lacks the information necessary to assess whether NTIA is pressuring states to rate regulate and to understand why so few state entities initial proposals have been approved to move forward.  CLICK HERE to read the full letter to Assistant Secretary Davidson. 

Washington, D.C. — In new letters to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General and Government Accountability Office (GAO) Comptroller General, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO), and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) ask for systemic reviews of Obamacare enrollment to determine the breadth of improper enrollment and its underlying causes.  The letters come following the release of a paper from Paragon Health Institute, which estimates that four to five million people are improperly enrolled in fully-subsidized Obamacare plans at a cost of $15 to $26 billion per year to taxpayers.  KEY EXCERPT FROM THE LETTERS:   The Democrat-passed tax-and-spend laws resulted in tens of billions of additional taxpayer dollars being spent to prop up Obamacare plans by increasing subsidies given to insurance companies far above those originally authorized by Congress. Recently, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that making those subsidy levels permanent would add nearly $400 billion to the deficit on top of the hundreds of billions in existing Obamacare spending.  A key feature of this expansion increases subsidies for insurance companies such that the full cost of premiums for individuals with incomes between 100 and 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is paid for by American taxpayers, often referred to as “zero-premium” plans. This policy, coupled with the Biden administration's regulatory actions to eliminate program integrity controls in the federal exchanges, such as prohibiting key eligibility verification procedures, appears to have created both the incentive and opportunity for individuals and brokers to misstate enrollees’ income to place them in benchmark plans receiving the maximum subsidy.  Individuals enrolled in this income cohort nationwide exceed the total number of potentially eligible individuals. This problem appears to be particularly acute in certain states, with some reporting hundreds of thousands, and, in one case, millions more individuals enrolled in these plans than are reasonably likely to be eligible. More than half of all enrollees in the federal exchange now report incomes between 100 and 150 percent of FPL—notably higher than the historical average of roughly 40 percent—further demonstrating the breadth of the enrollment incongruity.  While individuals may reasonably misestimate their income at any given point, the scale of the problem suggests malicious intent from certain actors involved. There have been documented issues with broker behavior surrounding these “zero-premium” plans, with reports and litigation detailing practices of consumers having their plan switched by such brokers without their consent.  Estimates show the cost of improperly enrolled individuals in “zero-premium” plans are $15 billion to $20 billion per year and potentially as high as $26 billion per year. If these estimates are accurate, it implies that these improper payments represent more than half the cost of making the expanded subsidies permanent.  Runaway deficits and debt are threatening to breach historic levels in the next decade, and, by 2054, the cost of simply servicing our national debt will more than double relative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), crowding out other important national priorities. Given this grave situation, it is critical that the federal government safeguard increasingly scarce resources to ensure that every dollar spent goes as far as possible to improve Americans’ wellbeing.  CLICK HERE to read the letter to HHS Inspector General Christi Grimm. CLICK HERE to read the letter to GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro.

Washington, D.C. — In a new letter to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) are pressing for more information regarding the agency’s foreign drug inspection program. The letter continues the Committee’s investigation into FDA inspection practices, which include a July 18, 2023, letter , a December 13, 2023, letter , and a February 6, 2024, oversight hearing at which the FDA declined to make an official available to testify.  BACKGROUND :  In the letter, the Members discuss the Committee’s analysis of FDA inspection outcomes in India and China from January 2014 to April 2024, limiting its review to inspectors with ten or more inspections in either China or India.   EXCERPT OF THE ANALYSIS :  “The results of this analysis were surprising, revealing tremendous variation in inspection outcomes. Some FDA inspectors found compliance issues during all or almost all of their inspections. Other inspectors rarely reported finding a single compliance issue. Two inspectors never found a single compliance issue over the course of a combined 24 inspections in India. Another inspector found zero compliance issues in 20 out of 23 inspections (85 percent) in China while finding compliance issues with almost half of domestic inspections during the same period. These are unusual inspection outcomes, the opposite of what would be expected given the widely reported failures in quality control and lack of adherence to current good manufacturing techniques by drug manufacturing facilities in China and India.  “By contrast, 16 FDA inspectors, with over 325 inspections collectively in India, found compliance issues during every inspection they conducted. As a measure of what a pattern of rigorous inspections should look like, the Committee reviewed the inspection outcomes for 3 FDA inspectors with professional reputations for thoroughness who also had at least 10 inspections in China or India during the studied time period. These expert inspectors reported finding no compliance issues during inspections in China at a rate of only 6.7 to 11.4 percent and at a rate of zero to 9.5 percent in India.”  KEY LETTER EXCERPT : “Such large variations in inspection outcomes are troubling, and they merit further investigation. At a minimum, the Committee is concerned that these findings suggest vast differences in the skill, thoroughness, and competence of FDA inspectors. The difference in inspection outcomes appears to be just another example of institutional weaknesses and dysfunction in the FDA’s foreign drug inspection program. Prior to the pandemic, media reporting found that some FDA inspectors took an inappropriately lenient approach with foreign drug manufacturers with serious compliance violations. There were also reports o f, and concerns about, foreign manufacturers attempting to bribe or improperly influence inspectors. The Committee is seriously evaluating the disturbing possibility that some of the variation in inspection outcomes could be the result of bribery or fraud.”  CLICK HERE to read the full letter. 

Washington, D.C. —  In a new letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) request information regarding HHS’s suspension and debarment process.  The letter also provides direct evidence refuting Secretary Becerra’s testimony to the Health Subcommittee asserting that HHS “will take immediate action” to stop sexual abusers from receiving taxpayer funding. It comes amid the Committee’s ongoing investigation into sexual harassment at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and at NIH grantee institutions.  KEY LETTER EXCERPT :  “At the April 17, 2024, hearing before the Subcommittee on Health, in response to a question about the redactions of names of confirmed abusers or harassers, you said: ‘If there is an abuser that is receiving taxpayer dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services, . . . in this particular case the National Institutes of Health [NIH], we will take action immediately.’    “ However, your claim is belied by the facts. Based on subpoenaed NIH documents reviewed in camera, Committee staff discovered that an individual who served as principal investigator on at least 24 NIH-grants was not suspended or debarred from receiving federal funding despite his conviction in 2021 of sexual abuse and his medical license being stripped . Based on documentation reviewed during the Committee’s in camera review of sexual misconduct allegations on NIH-funded research, staff found that in September 2020, the NIH recommended to HHS an immediate federal-wide suspension and debarment of this abuser for 10 years based on the abuser’s indictment in 2019 on three counts of sexual abuse, and the grantee institution’s determination that the individual was responsible for sexual harassment in January of 2020. Despite this recommendation from the NIH, followed by the individual’s conviction in December 2021, HHS has taken no action. Three and a half years later, this abuser remains eligible for federal funding. On April 15, 2024, Committee staff sent an email to HHS staff requesting information about the status and handling of this matter. HHS has not yet responded.”  [...]  “ We are troubled by the limited use of suspensions and debarments from awarding agencies within HHS along with the timeliness issues and lack of use of suspensions pre-debarment raised by the HHS OIG. Harassers and abusers with public reporting of their actions, and even some with criminal convictions, are not present on SAM.gov as suspended or debarred .”  BACKGROUND : HHS is the largest grantmaking agency in the federal government—awarding over $778 billion in grants in fiscal year 2023.  Federal suspension and debarment programs help to protect the integrity of federal grant programs by ensuring the federal government does business only with responsible persons.  Individuals or parties receiving grants can be suspended or debarred from continuing to receive federal grants if they lack honesty, integrity, or business performance.  Within HHS, a suspension or debarment action may be initiated from an awarding agency—such as the NIH—or another entity—such as the Office of Inspector General (OIG).     Referrals for suspension or debarment are sent to the HHS Office of Recipient Integrity Coordination (ORIC) for review and final decision by the Suspension and Debarment Official (SDO).  Referrals can be conviction-based—originating from a criminal conviction or civil judgement—or fact-based—in which the referring office builds a case based on facts (e.g., audit findings or failures to disclose).  Suspensions and debarments are not retrospective, meaning respondents can maintain their current award(s), but it does prevent them from receiving new federal awards.   Not only are these suspensions and debarments valid within the referring agency, but they also generally make a respondent ineligible for awards from other federal departments.   Suspended or debarred parties or individuals are listed on SAM.gov and awarding departments can check this list before awarding grants to prevent awarding grants to these parties or individuals.   While federal departments have discretion as to when to refer a respondent for suspension or debarment, HHS—and particularly awarding agencies such as the NIH—can prevent known harassers or abusers from receiving additional federal awards across the federal government through these processes.   However, a 2022 HHS OIG report found several concerns during its audit of HHS’s suspension and debarment processes.  HHS OIG found that 84 percent of referrals came from non-awarding agencies—such as the OIG or Office of Research Integrity—rather than those offices charged with supervising ongoing grants.  This statistic raised concerns for the OIG about the extent to which awarding agencies were doing enough to identify and take action against bad actors and if agencies are missing opportunities for additional suspension and debarment referrals.  Another concern is the timeliness of the HHS suspension and debarment process and the limited use of suspensions during pending debarment proceedings.   The HHS OIG found that nearly half of suspensions implemented by ORIC did not meet its 60-day goal, with several suspensions taking longer than 300 days to implement.  Of the 134 debarments that ORIC implemented, nearly all involved grants, yet less than one-third of these debarments included a preceding suspension.  That means more than two-thirds of respondents may have maintained access to additional federal funding during the debarment process, with the longest case taking 1251 days or nearly three and a half years.  Moreover, for conviction-based debarments—in which the evidentiary threshold has generally already been met by the conviction or judgment—75 percent of conviction-based debarments implemented by ORIC did not meet its 100-day goal.  Rather, implementation took an average of 325 days and nearly a quarter of these debarments took over 500 days to be implemented.  The HHS OIG found numerous areas in which the timeliness, efficiency and effectiveness of HHS’s suspension and debarment program were negatively affected by internal factors.   Specifically, there is a very high turnover rate at both the staff and senior leadership levels of the suspension and debarment program, with ORIC’s full staffing levels being four personnel.  Moreover, seven different people served as HHS’s SDO—the official determining if suspension or debarment is to be implemented—in just four years.  With this kind of turnover, cases may fall through the cracks or be heavily delayed.   Moreover, HHS OIG found that a lack of policies and procedures regarding entering and tracking important case information and milestones plus a lack of guidance on what information is needed in fact-based referrals has limited the ability to suspend or debar individuals.  Specifically, ORIC was not able to suspend or debar several individuals due to a lack of documentation in the referral that showed a referring entity followed its own corrective-action escalation process prior to the suspension or debarment.  CLICK HERE to read the full letter.  TIMELINE OF INVESTIGATION:   August 10, 2021 : E&C Republican Leaders Question NIH’s Handling of Sexual Harassment Complaints    August 11, 2022 : E&C Republican Leaders follow up with NIH on Insufficient Response to its Letter on the NIH’s handling of Sexual Harassment    November 30, 2022 : E&C Republicans to NIH: Turn Over Previously Requested Information Ahead of New Congress    March 14, 2023 : E&C Republicans Press NIH for Information on Handling of Sexual Harassment Complaints    October 6, 2023 : E&C Republicans Signal Intent to Issue Subpoena to Obtain Information on NIH’s Handling of Sexual Harassment if Questions Go Unanswered    January 26, 2024 : Chair Rogers notifies NIH of Imminent Subpoena    February 5, 2024 : Chair Rodgers Subpoenas NIH for Documents Related to Investigation into Sexual Harassment at NIH and NIH Grantee Institutions   February 20, 2024 : HHS Responds on behalf of NIH to offer a rolling in camera document review to the Committee. Documents produced in the review have been highly redacted, including the redaction of the names of individuals convicted of criminal offenses, public news articles about individuals who have been found guilty of harassment, and redaction of the names of the institutions where the abuse occurred—effectively preventing the Committee from understanding if NIH continues to fund work performed by substantiated abusers at other institutions—a practice known as “pass the harasser.”   April 16, 2024 : E&C Republicans Expand Investigation into Sexual Harassment at NIH to now Include Review of HHS Office of Civil Rights Compliance Role  May 9, 2024 : E&C Republicans ask Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra to provide the Committee with the legal basis requiring HHS to redact or hide the names of researchers determined to have committed sexual misconduct. 

Washington D.C. — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso (R-WY) sent a letter to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm following reports that the Biden administration is preparing to further drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The letter calls on the Secretary to safeguard the SPR and stop using it to provide political cover for President Biden in an election year. KEY LETTER EXCERPT: “ Under President Biden, the SPR has reached its lowest level since 1983. The DOE has overseen the largest sale in history, amounting to a total of 290 million barrels. When President Biden took office in January 2021, the SPR contained 638 million barrels of oil. Today, the SPR currently contains 367 million barrels of oil, which represents nearly a 42 percent decline from when President Biden took office.”  […] “Under the Biden administration, the SPR has been abused for political purposes to try and bring down record high gasoline prices that are driving record high inflation that are a consequence of the administration’s radical rush to 'green' energy policies. In November of 2021, the Biden administration announced a release, in coordination with China, in an attempt to lower prices. Then in March of 2022, the president announced the release of 180 million barrels of oil from the SPR in the middle of an election year, a transparent attempt to influence the midterm elections and distract from the Biden administration’s energy policy failures.”  [...] “We urge you, in the strongest terms, to put this country’s energy security first and stop abusing the SPR for political purposes. As the Secretary of Energy, it is your responsibility to ensure that the SPR is ready to respond to true energy supply disruptions.” CLICK HERE to read the full letter. CLICK HERE to read Chair Rodgers and Ranking Member Barrasso’s letter in November 2022 detailing the damage from President Biden’s SPR drawdowns. CLICK HERE to read Chair Rodgers’s statement on the House’s passage of H.R. 21, the Strategic Production Response Act , which would help ensure the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is available during a true energy emergency and not abused for non-emergency, political purposes. 

Washington, D.C. — In a new letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) have asked for a briefing regarding a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) report that a high security lab in Canada was infiltrated by Chinese scientists connected to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). BACKGROUND : Recently disclosed information from Canada provides additional insight into the Wuhan Institute of Virology's (WIV) interests and activities in the months leading up to the pandemic. In Canada, it was revealed that Canada's highest security lab (where Ebola and coronaviruses are studied) was infiltrated by Chinese scientists receiving secret payments from China’s military. This information was revealed in a report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in February 2024, following a two-year investigation. Two scientists at Canada’s high-security infectious disease laboratory—Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng—provided confidential scientific information to China and were fired in 2021 after a probe concluded Dr. Qiu posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security” and it was discovered they engaged in clandestine meetings with Chinese officials. CSIS discovered Dr. Qiu had applied for, and likely received, a position under China’s Thousand Talents Program and that her position came through the WIV. According to CSIS, Dr. Qiu, who worked at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, lied when confronted about her actions, making “blanket denials” and “half-truths, and personally benefited from the arrangement,” noting that she repeatedly lied to the CSIS and “refused to admit to any involvement in various PRC [People’s Republic of China] programs.” In a January 2021 letter recommending that Dr. Qiu’s security clearance be revoked, CSIS stated: “The Service assess that Ms. Qiu developed deep, cooperative relationships with a variety of People’s Republic of China institutions and has intentionally transferred scientific knowledge and materials to China in order to benefit the PRC government.” The two infectious-disease scientists were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July 2019, and later had their security clearances revoked. They were fired in January 2021. Their whereabouts are not known. Of particular concern is that Dr. Qiu covertly and without authorization provided the Ebola genetic sequence, intellectual property related to research of Ebola, and possibly other pathogens to China. Others informed CSIS that Dr. Qiu and her husband used Gmail accounts extensively, rather than her government of Canada emails. This would appear to be a good source of communications between these spy-scientists in Canada and Wuhan and/or the Chinese military. CSIS found an application from her to one of China’s talent programs that said she would work for the WIV for at least two months every year. As part of her enrollment, CSIS said, Dr. Qiu committed to “building the People’s Republic of China’s biosecurity platform for new and potent infectious disease research.” The CSIS investigation found Dr. Qiu led a project at the WIV that would assess cross-species infection and pathogenic risks of filoviruses, work that CSIS said suggests “gain-of-function studies were possibly to take place.” CSIS also noted Dr. Qiu, who headed the vaccine development and antiviral therapies section at the Winnipeg lab, collaborated on scientific papers with Chinese military researchers, including Major-General Chen Wei, a high-ranking officer in the People’s Liberation Army. In a report, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) found Dr. Qiu lied about an October 2018 trip to China that she had said was a personal vacation, but later acknowledged after being presented with contradictory evidence that the trip was paid for by the WIV and she met the WIV’s director during the visit. CLICK HERE to read the full letter.

Washington, D.C. — In a new letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) are seeking answers as to whether the agency adequately safeguards Clinical Laboratory Improvements Amendments (CLIA) lab accreditation from national security concerns.  The Members are particularly concerned with national security concerns related to the Chinese military and the unethical use of human beings in research studies by entities of concern in China.  BACKGROUND :  Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) is a firm based in Shenzhen used by the Chinese government to build and operate the China National GeneBank, “a vast and growing government-owned repository that includes genetic data drawn from millions of people around the world.”  The Department of Defense in 2022 officially listed BGI as one of several “Chinese military companies” operating in the United States, and a 2021 U.S. intelligence assessment linked the company to the Beijing-directed global effort to obtain even more human DNA, including from the United States.  On March 6, 2023, the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security added BGI Tech Solutions (Hongkong) Co. Ltd., to the “Entity List,” which identifies entities for which there is reasonable cause to believe, based on specific and articulable facts, that the entities have been involved, are involved, or pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.  It was added to the entity list “based upon information that indicates their collection and analysis of genetic data poses a significant risk of contributing to monitoring and surveillance by the government of China, which has been utilized in the repression of ethnic minorities in China. Information also indicates that the actions of these entities concerning the collection and analysis of genetic data present a significant risk of diversion to China’s military programs.”  CMS accredited a laboratory owned by BGI in 2017-2019. It then provided a CLIA accreditation to an entity called BGI Tech Solutions (Hongkong) Co. Ltd., effective September 8, 2023, with an expiration date of September 7, 2025, and with the same address and the same point of contact listed in the previous BGI CLIA lab accreditation.  CLICK HERE to read the letter. 

Washington, D.C. — In a letter to National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Monica Bertagnolli, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) write regarding their investigation into how NIH recovers misused funds from recipient institutions.  KEY LETTER EXCERPT :  “While NIH funding has resulted in significant advances in science and aided in medical breakthroughs, it is also susceptible to fraud and other misconduct. With more than $35 billion in extramural grants awarded in fiscal year 2023 alone, it is essential that the NIH ensures grant funds are used appropriately and identifies and recovers any misused or abused funds.”  BACKGROUND :  The NIH and its institutes and centers may also become aware of financial misuse or fraud through allegations and complaints made by colleagues at the recipient institution, whistleblowers, or even anonymous complaints. Between fiscal years 2013 and 2022, the NIH received an increasing number of allegations of grant fraud—such as embezzlement and theft of funds—totaling more than 200 allegations.  Several public reports have uncovered substantiated cases of misuse of funding provided by the NIH—including findings that researchers at both Harvard University and Scripps Research Institute improperly charged or overcharged the NIH for time researchers spent on grant activities, leading to over $1.3 million and $10 million being refunded to the NIH respectively.  During the same period, the NIH also received more than 1,000 allegations of research misconduct.   The ORI’s website summarizes nearly 30 cases of substantiated research misconduct—including falsification, fabrication, or plagiarism of data or findings supported by NIH-funded research—since 2018.   These cases involve hundreds of millions of dollars, and it is unknown how much of that funding was used specifically by the person(s) found to have participated in the misconduct.   There are only a handful of public cases in which the NIH has managed to recover some funds from institutions found to have failed to protect the integrity of NIH funding.   For example, in 2019, Duke University agreed to repay $112.5 million to resolve allegations that applications and progress reports submitted to the federal government—including the NIH—contained falsified research.  CLICK HERE to read the full letter.