That has led some, including Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), to accuse the parties of simply using the agreement as a way to transfer money to the Pentagon without congressional approval. Others are suggesting that this is part of a longer-term effort to shift any biosecurity research out of the NIH and into the Pentagon.
One of the striking aspects of the deal is that it will involve the use of NIH money to fund research that the NIH leadership has explicitly rejected. Prior to the Trump administration, NIAID funded a lot of work directed toward studying the biology of emerging diseases and developing potential defenses. In a commentary published early this year, the Heads of NIAID and the NIH explicitly called for dropping biodefense research from the agency’s remit and rejecting things like pandemic preparedness in favor of a focus on “the most impactful infectious diseases that Americans currently face.”
Yet the new agreement includes money that will be spent to “protect the United States from future pandemic strains, CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear] threats and other emerging infectious disease.” In other words, the NIH will be giving money to the Department of Defense to fund research its leadership doesn’t want to see happen.
Very little of this makes any sense, and the agreement itself is remarkably vague, so it will be difficult to determine its consequences until spending data becomes available. That’s assuming future Congresses don’t simply prohibit this sort of spending, something that its recent actions have suggested it might be willing to do.