What follows is a letter that the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget John J. Callahan sent in February 1997 to all
institutional officials regarding the human embryo research ban that has been in effect since Fiscal Year 1996. Source: Directive on Human Embryo Research
February 1997
Dear Institutional Official:
As the official responsible for administering National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grants at your institution, your knowledge of law and policy affecting grant management must be kept current. To assist you in this regard, I am reminding you of two requirements for all of our grantees.
The fiscal year 1996 and 1997 appropriations acts which provide funding for the NIH included amendments constraining the use of federal funds through the following provisions:
No federal research funds may be used for the creation of a human embryo for research purposes or for research in which a human embryo is destroyed, discarded or subjected to more than minimal risk.
No NIH grant awards have been or could be made for such work, nor may an investigator use NIH resources for such purposes.
Your attention is also called to the following obligation:
All publications derived from work done with federal support must contain reference to federal support and the proportion of the work so supported.
I realize that journals may have their own policies about how they cite support for work being reported, but there are many avenues of dissemination, such as press releases, over which you, as an institution official, have control. In such instances, the above-stated policy should be implemented.
Please share this communication widely in your institution. Details on these and other important issues are formally conveyed in the NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts which can be accessed on the NIH Home Page (http://www.nih.gov). The page will also provide linkage to source documents and provide ongoing announcements about policies with which you should be familiar.
If you should have any questions about laws, regulations or policies affecting our grants, contracts or cooperative agreements, please raise them with your grants policy officials at the NIH. We have a shared responsibility to ensure that funds are expended appropriately to further scientific goals and to ensure the proper stewardship of federal funds.
Sincerely,
|
