The NIH Becomes a Joke

In 2012, I wrote a post on “The Scholarly Kitchen” as part of a tradition of April Fool’s posts. This one involved the idea that . . . well, why don’t you just read it:

A surprising new coalition of conservative thinkers, US-first activists, and Tea Party proponents has come together to form the Taxpayer Equity, Access, Research, Defense of Rights and Ownership Preservation (TEARDROP) SuperPAC, which will spend money supporting candidates willing to vote to make research findings funded by US taxpayers available only to other US taxpayers in good standing.

“I’ve changed my mind again,” said Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA). “In Friday’s session, Rand Paul gave a compelling argument that we had a higher obligation as elected representatives of the people. I mean, protecting copyright holders is one thing, but preserving the value of taxpayer research for the American people, and keeping it from people who have not paid taxes — like tax cheats and non-Americans — it’s just common sense.”

Like anyone holding elected office, Congressman Issa cannot coordinate with the newly formed TEARDROP Super Pac, but the SuperPAC has changed Issa’s immediate priorities. In what is surely an absolute coincidence, three of his primary staff members recently resigned to join the new organization. However, they continue to work for Issa as consultants.

“Intellectual property is vital to the success of any enterprise,” said the newly appointed leader of the TEARDROP Super Pac, Owen D. Bills, a former mortgage officer with Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. “Creators own their works, and those who hire them own those works. In the case of NIH and other government grants, the US government owns the outputs of those works. Therefore, the law-abiding, tax-paying US citizens own those works, and we’ve never signed a treaty or passed a law saying we should share them with anyone.”

The TEARDROP SuperPAC is drafting model legislation that would force the NIH and other government document servers to be locked down to any traffic coming from outside the United States and its sovereign territories, and for new logins be put in place requiring Social Security numbers from users, which would then be validated against IRS records so that only taxpayers in good standing can access taxpayer-funded content.

“It makes a lot of sense to me,” said Willie Nelson. “I think I would have noticed much sooner that my financial advisers weren’t paying my taxes if suddenly I hadn’t had access to the medical marijuana literature. It could have saved me a lot of trouble. It would have been always on my mind.”

Republican Presidential candidate New Gingrich, quick to jump into any controversy, came out swinging early Saturday morning, saying, “When my moon colonies are in place, they’ll be US moon colonies, and everyone there will be good tax-paying Americans. They’ll read science. We’ll teach creationism, but we’ll read science. That’s the American way.”

Republican front-runner Mitt Romney couldn’t be reached for comment. His aides said he was composing a response on his Etch-a-Sketch, but was having difficulty making satisfactory cursive letters.

Not wishing to miss possible Tea Party momentum, alternative model legislation is being drafted by a contingent of left-leaning Democrats. This version contemplates a metering approach, so that access to the complete archive of taxpayer-funded research is available for taxpayers paying the highest marginal tax rates, and metered down based on the rate paid in the most recent tax year. In effect, the richest citizens would have less access to taxpayer-funded research if this provision were to become law.

Republican lawmakers are furious at these newly proposed strictures.

“We’ve fought hard to keep taxes low,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel (R-KY). “So proposals like this are outrageous. The job creators are responsible for much of the wealth in this country, so should benefit from research at a higher rate than they’re willing to pay. It’s only fair.”

Political pundits are noting that while this type of legislation has little chance of passage, the funding for the TEARDROP SuperPAC, which remains clouded in obscurity, is rumored to be surprisingly robust.

“I’ve heard tales that some individual donors from the publishing industry are giving tens of dollars to support this,” said one insider on condition of anonymity. “Some are giving hundreds. For publishers, that’s serious money. Somebody wants this passed.”

Some are also speculating that a portion of the money supporting the TEARDROP Super Pac is coming from foreign sources. While this would technically be illegal, it can more easily occur since the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision. There has been an increase in statements, especially from the Netherlands, which lend credence to such speculation.

“Paying taxes is a sovereign nation’s business,” said Durk Dirk, a publishing consultant in the Netherlands, quoted in the Dutch newspaper Der Newsenpäper. “Disseminating publications paid for by one nation’s citizens to the rest of the world is worse than a stroopwafel laying on the sidewalk in the rain!”

“I never thought I’d agree with a Dutchman,” Rep. Issa said later, reviewing a draft of this story. “I guess politics makes strange bedfellows. But I won’t kick him out of bed over a few stroopwafel crumbs, that’s for sure. Those things are delicious!”

Earlier this week, the NIH announced their “foreign collaborations” policy, and it’s equally ridiculous, while also filled with poor punctuation.

The xenophobia, nationalism, and ignorance streaming off the document are remarkable, sad, and counterproductive. Humans are humans, diseases cross borders, findings are generalizable, and scientific insights are not possessions but progress.

Science is a global human endeavor to understand the natural world. By limiting ourselves and our collaborations, we are limiting in a more severe way our scientific communities’ ability to make progress.

NIH MAHA leadership has ideas about science that amount to an awful, despicable joke.