Ranking Member Lofgren Pushes for Public Hearing on Jim O’Neill as Next NSF Director

WASHINGTON, D.C.- Today, Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) sent a letter(link is external) to Senator Bill Cassidy, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) urging him to hold a public hearing on the nomination of Jim O'Neill for Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Ranking Member calls into question whether O'Neill is qualified for the role and implores Senator Cassidy examine O'Neill's involvement in a controversial grant awarded to an unqualified research group to study vaccine efficacy on infants in Guinea-Bissau during his time as leader of the CDC.

"Mr. O'Neill is largely untested on matters related to stewarding the crown jewel of this nation's scientific enterprise," writes Ranking Member Lofgren. "This makes it all the more crucial that he appears before the HELP Committee in a public fashion. If confirmed, Mr. O'Neill would be the first Director in NSF's 76-year history who is not a scientist or an engineer, as he lacks both a technical degree and any research experience."

"While this Administration makes sweeping declarations about the value of 'gold-standard science,' Secretary Kennedy and Acting Director O'Neill chose to direct taxpayer money to a research group that has been hotly criticized for publishing nonreproducible work that has been repeatedly debunked. You are a medical doctor and a longtime proponent of vaccines that have been proven safe and effective, such as the hepatitis B vaccine that would have been the focus of this misguided and expensive endeavor. The American people deserve a public hearing where you and your HELP colleagues drill down on Mr. O'Neill's involvement in this deeply unscientific, unethical, wasteful decision that happened while he was leading the CDC; though Guinea-Bissau's government halted the study, we must not ignore the fact that U.S. decision makers were going to allow it to happen, at significant cost to American taxpayers. As Director of NSF, awarding taxpayer money to meritorious, ethical research will be a critical part of Mr. O'Neill's job. This attempt to fund this anti-vaccine study raises questions about Mr. O'Neill's fitness for such a role, and I implore you to publicly examine his involvement in this decision."

Read the letter here.(link is external)

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