weekly letter

Dear Research Advocate, Mentioned here last week and the focus of an alliance member webinar earlier this week, the President issued an executive order (EO) extending and imposing new restrictions on worker and student visas. Our statement expresses opposition . Let’s face it — this EO essentially forces our nation to shoot itself in the foot. Bernat Navarro-Serer of the Johns Hopkins Science Policy Group (and a Research!America 2019 student microgrant recipient ) makes the case for sustaining our nation’s long-standing student visa programs . From the article: “ ...a suspension on work visas sends a strong message to current and future students seeking an education in the United States:...

Dear Research Advocate, You may have paused yesterday in solidarity with the young scientists who galvanized the #ShutDownSTEM movement to listen and reflect on your personal and your organization’s role in ending racism; I did. The very first research project I was involved in worked hard to recruit its study volunteers from a diverse community; we were only modestly successful. That was more than 40 years ago; ensuring diversity in clinical trials is still a major obstacle. Overcoming health disparities is a related challenge, one that calls for — no, demands — far greater attention. Witness COVID-19. We may not know all the factors that are causing dramatically disproportionate harm to...

Dear Research Advocate, The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has surpassed 100,000 lives. If anything other than tragedy and destruction lies in the wake of COVID-19, let it be the courage to see, clearly, the world we live in now. Our nation is ill-equipped for crises, ill-equipped for economic competitiveness, and under-resourced to speed progress against other health threats that kill just as surely, if not as rapidly, as COVID-19. Ignoring the pandemic’s message is all too tempting. Let’s not succumb to it. As National Academy of Sciences President Dr. Marcia McNutt advises, we must learn from the pandemic and “build back better”. Speaking of building back better, this Washington Post...

Dear Research Advocate, On Tuesday, Research!America sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar asking him to clarify the decision to end NIH grant funding for an ongoing, EcoHealth Alliance research initiative focused on pandemic preparedness. We urge the Secretary to shed needed light on this significant (on many levels) decision. On Capitol Hill : House Democrats have released a draft emergency spending bill, the HEROES Act . This discussion draft includes $4 billion for the Office of the Director at NIH, of which “not less than $3 billion” would be set aside to help academic institutions absorb COVID-19 related shutdown and start-up costs. (This is $7 billion shy of the recovery costs NIH...