October 31, 2023
The Honorable Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Chair
Committee on Energy and Commerce
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Chair Rodgers:
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS or Department) is in receipt of your October 20, 2023, letter to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) regarding certain research on mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIALD). I am pleased to respond on behalf of NIH.
NIH and the Department have made significant accommodations to address the committee’s inquiry regarding a potential experiment the committee has referred to as the so-called “clade 1 study.” As you know, when the committee began its inquiry, you raised questions regarding whether the “clade 1 study” “was reviewed under the HHS P3CO framework,” in addition to the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Intragovernmental Select Agents and Toxins Technical Advisory Committee (ISATTAC). In response, the Department informed the committee that the “clade 1 study” had not been conducted. We also explained that NIAID does not presently have any plans to move forward with such an experiment, and if it did in the future, any such research would need to undergo a rigorous review process, including an assessment of whether the research may be subject to the HHS P3CO Framework.[1]
Despite this clear response tailored to the committee’s stated concerns, the committee subsequently claimed it was “still unclear whether this research may have been conducted.” In an extraordinary accommodation, the Department conveyed to the committee a June 30 letter that was drafted and personally signed by Dr. Bernard Moss, an NIH Distinguished Investigator with whom you requested a transcribed interview regarding the “clade 1 study.” In his letter, Dr. Moss reiterated that the experiment at issue had not been conducted and that there were currently no plans to do so.[2]
The committee then shifted to baselessly questioning the authenticity of Dr. Moss’s June 30 letter. Once again, the Department offered the committee an extraordinary accommodation
- ↑ April 26, 2023, letter to Committee on Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers from Assistant Secretary for Legislation Melanie Anne Egorin.
- ↑ June 30, 2023, letter to Committee on Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers from Dr. Bernard Moss, NIH Distinguished Investigator, Laboratory of Viral Diseases, NIAID.
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