Today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health held a hearing on Congressman Curtis’s bill, the Fix Nondisclosure of Influence in Health Research Act, or the Fix NIH Research Act.

“I am deeply concerned by foreign influence in research institutions through China’s Thousand Talents Program,” said Rep. Curtis. “My bill before us today, the NIH Research Act, would help prevent these nefarious influence operations. The Fix NIH Research Act is in the bipartisan China package, and I urge my colleagues to maintain its inclusion and pass this common-sense legislation into law”

Please see Congressman Curtis's remarks from the hearing below:

Background:

Congressman Curtis served on the GOP China Task Force in 2020 and the final report found:

• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a coordinated global campaign to recruit overseas Science & Technology experts through talent programs like “Thousand Talents” and other efforts, to obtain knowledge and IP through coercive or fraudulent means.
• The CCP’s talent programs rather require participants to operate in secrecy and in some cases contractually obligate participants to illegally transfer information and property.

Earlier this month a government watchdog issued a report asserting the National Institutes of Health should improve its oversight of federal grant recipients who do sensitive medical research and whose scientists receive foreign funding or support.

The Fix NIH Research Act fixes this by documenting and combatting research misconduct related to foreign influence.

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