Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards

Thirty-eight of 43 experts cut last month from the boards that review the science and research that happens in laboratories at the National Institutes of Health are female, Black or Hispanic, according to an analysis by the chairs of a dozen of the boards.

The scientists, with expertise in fields that include mental health, cancer and infectious disease, typically serve five-year terms and were not given a reason for their dismissal. About a fifth of the roughly 200 board members — who provide an independent, expert layer of review for the vast research enterprise within the NIH — were fired. These scientists rate the quality of the science on the nation’s largest biomedical research campus, where 1,200 taxpayer-funded investigators lead laboratories focused on Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, cancer immunotherapy and other diseases and treatments.

Six percent of White males who serve on boards were fired, compared with half of Black and Hispanic females and a quarter of all females, according to the analysis. Of 36 Black and Hispanic board members, close to 40% were fired, compared to 16% of White board members. The chairs’ analysis calculated the likelihood that this would have happened by chance as 1 in 300.

“We rate them [NIH scientists] on what they’ve done — is it good science, are you publishing, are you doing something relevant to the NIH mission?” said JoAnne L. Flynn, an infectious-diseases expert whose work focuses on tuberculosis. She was dismissed from the board that reviews research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Every scientist in government and academia is reviewed, and people should take comfort in that. People who are unbiased are reviewing the science.”

Flynn said she spoke on behalf of herself, not the University of Pittsburgh, where she works. Four women and one Black man were terminated from the NIAID board, including Flynn. Her term was not set to expire until 2029. She previously served on the board from 2016 to 2021, during the first Trump administration.

“I can’t imagine that I’m not an expert in something,” Flynn said. “So I can only assume, based on the demographics, that it looks like they targeted women and people of color.”

The brief dismissal letters were signed by then-NIH acting director Matthew Memoli. He is now second-in-command at NIH under director Jay Bhattacharya.

“Members on this committee serve at the pleasure of the Director of the National Institutes of Health. As such, your appointment has been terminated effective immediately,” Memoli wrote in several of the letters obtained by The Washington Post.

The Department of Health and Human Services strongly denied that race or gender played a role in why people were targeted, but it did not offer an explanation for the pattern.

“The suggestion that race or gender played any role in decisions regarding Board of Scientific Counselors (BSC) memberships is categorically false and the Washington Post should be ashamed for reporting so,” the statement said. “This was a strategic reset and it is standard practice to replace individuals on boards with a new administration — this is nothing new.”

Multiple people familiar with the boards of scientific counselors at NIH over the years said such turnover is not routine.

In their report, which is being sent to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions✓ and to Bhattacharya, the chairs of 12 of the boards of scientific counselors expressed concern about the pattern of firings.

“The profound imbalance in the demographic characteristics of those who have been fired vs. those who have not suggests that these individuals may have been singled out for termination on the very basis of those characteristics. If so, this raises concerns about how these termination decisions are being made,” the board chairs wrote in the report.

The Trump administration has dissolved a number of advisory committees at its health agencies. For example, the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections, which provides expert advice on studies on human participants, was terminated on March 31, according to an internal email obtained by The Post. But in this case, across two dozen boards of scientific counselors, handfuls of individuals from 21 boards analyzed by the board chairs were fired, according to their report.

Robin Wagner, a civil rights and employment law attorney at the law firm Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers in Michigan, said the large number of people terminated provides a rare opportunity to look carefully at who was chosen and who was not.

“Look how many people are women; look at how many people are non-White. Is there any way to attribute this to something other than race and gender? And then when you look at the numbers and the chances it could be any reason other than race and gender?” Wagner said. “There’s no random set of other kind of reasons that would correlate with this [pattern] so much, as it was because of race and gender. It was rather compelling.”

External scientists face review on a project-by-project basis when they write individual grant proposals, seeking financial support for specific projects. The boards, on the other hand, rate and review a scientist’s entire body of work every four years, including a visit to their labs and interviews with the scientists that work in their labs.

One NIH scientist called the review process “existential.” Commenting on the rigor of the board review at their institute on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, the scientist added: “It’s not just what you did, but your whole career and who you are.”

The procedures for selecting members of the board state that those chosen should have “international recognition as an authority in one of the fields of research under review” as the primary criterion. But there should also be an effort to establish “reasonable balance” based on a diversity of scientific points of view, as well as with respect to gender, ethnicity and geography. New members are nominated by current members of the board and scientific leaders within the institutes, and by the NIH director.

“While it’s perfectly reasonable for any administration to decide on their priority areas for funding, having content experts to review the science that may be funded is still critical,” said one fired member of a board, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because their institution had not authorized them to comment publicly.

—

• Alice Crites contributed.