NE Washington News

Washington, D.C. — In a new letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra and 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) requested documents and transcribed interviews related to an approved MPVX experiment.

The letter follows the release of an interim staff report on the experiment as well as an NIH reform framework. It states that failure to produce the requested documents by August 8, 2024, may lead to a subpoena to compel compliance. HHS and the NIH continue to withhold critical documents requested by the Committee last year.

“For nearly a year and a half, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the NIH, and NIAID misled the Committee. Both HHS and the NIH told us a risky MPXV research proposal at the NIAID had not been 'formally proposed' or 'planned' when in fact this project was submitted and received approval before the NIH’s Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) on June 30, 2015, as documented in written meeting minutes. The misleading statements were included in the following communications to the Committee:

Letter from the HHS Assistant Secretary for Legislation dated April 26, 2023.

Letter from Dr. Bernard Moss to Chair Rodgers, dated June 30, 2023.

Written statements presented at the September 21, 2023 meeting between Committee staff and NIH/NIAID officials from Dr. Bernard Moss, Dr. Steven Holland, NIAID Director of the Division of Intramural Research, and Jeffery Potts, Chief of the Biorisk Management Branch within the NIH Division of Occupational Health and Safety.

“This deception is unacceptable and has led the Committee to conclude that NIAID cannot be trusted to oversee its own research of pathogens or determine whether an experiment poses enhanced risks of a potential pandemic or other serious public health outbreak.”

“NIAID’s lack of candor to this point suggests that it cannot be trusted to oversee the research projects that it funds. Therefore, this Committee will explore policy options to address this inherent conflict of interest and lack of transparency.”

A new strain of MPXV has recently emerged that increases the risk of this disease causing a major public health outbreak or a potential pandemic. Since January, the Democratic Republic of Congo has reported more than 4,500 suspected mpox cases and nearly 300 deaths—numbers that have roughly tripled from the same period last year according to the World Health Organization.

Congo recently declared a health emergency due to this outbreak across the country. An analysis of hospitalized patients suggests recent genetic mutations are due to continued transmissions in humans.