W ASHINGTON, DC - A review by recasting program peers national Institutes of health (NIH) takes the intense fire of the AIDS community. Complaints activists patients and scientists have been accumulating for 2 weeks in the scientific review for NIH Center (CSR), which is considering the recommendations of a group led by Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, to redraft grant applications rank groups ( science , 30 July, p. 666).
The Alberts committee suggested the review committees grouping peer in broad areas of science rather than specific disease categories or methods of research, as many are now grouped. For example, the panel proposed the removal of the existing category "AIDS and AIDS-related research" and moving the sections seven study under this heading in new, more general scientific categories such as immunology or behavioral processes.
One critic Mario Stevenson, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts, Worcester, said: "I am a firm believer in the old saying:" If it is not broke, do not fix it. "... And I think that criticism in the field of AIDS work very well." He and others have approved letters of protest, arguing that the elimination of the specific category dilute expertise AIDS and lower the quality of peer review. Charles Carpenter of Brown University, Chairman of the Board, which advises the NIH Office of Research on AIDS, sent a letter to CSR behalf of the warning that the proposed reform council could expose grant proposals "a review by investigators do not have appropriate AIDS research knowledge. "
CSR director Elvera Ehrenfeld said she was surprised by the angry reaction. She thinks that AIDS researchers may be confused by "an unfortunate misunderstanding" that the existing study items disappear. the AIDS panels would simply be placed into new groups, she said. However, some critics "may be valid," Ehrenfeld said, "and that's why we asked for feedback, "which are due to CSR on 15 October Alberts also wants to dispel concern.". It is clear that we must explore with AIDS researchers exactly what bothers and why "
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