The National Institutes of Health’s refusal to make public documents related to research the agency is funding on pandemic viruses is “grossly irresponsible,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of Center for Food Safety which filed the lawsuit.
Last week, Center for Food Safety filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Center for Food Safety is suing the agency over its failure to release government documents related to the approval and issuance of NIH contracts and grants that fund research projects involving controversial gain of function/gain of threat studies with dangerous, so-called “enhanced potential pandemic pathogens.”
“The NIH’s refusal to make public the research it is funding to enhance the transmissibility, infectiousness and lethality of potential pandemic viruses is grossly irresponsible,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of Center for Food Safety. “We are litigating to get that information because transparency and public knowledge about these highly hazardous experiments could be an important step in avoiding the next pandemic.”
