Hundreds of U.S. scientists feared compromised by China

The federal health officials told a Senate committee that they are fighting to keep up with large-scale Chinese efforts to corrupt American researchers and steal intellectual property that scientists hope will lead to biomedical advances.

NIH has contacted more than 90 institutions about more than 200 scientists they're concerned about, said Dr. Michael S. Lauer, NIH deputy director for extramural research.

The investigations' workload is weighing down the nation's top medical research agency, and new cases are turning up constantly across the government.

China has targeted research throughout the economy from corn growers to cancer researchers.

Gary Cantrell, Health and Human Services Department deputy inspector general for investigations, cited the example of researcher Song Guo Zheng, who is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last year to lying on applications for NIH grants totaling $4.1 million that he admitted were used to enhance Chinese expertise in rheumatology and immunology.

Federal officials don't have a handle on the scope of the attempted foreign influence, and the federal government's efforts drew questions from lawmakers about who is responsible for identifying and preventing the corruption of American researchers.

NIH is only one component of the federal government's investment in research.

Ms. Wright said the GAO previously found that the Department of Defense did not have a policy guiding conflicts of interest disclosures and was awaiting guidance from another government committee focused on federal research.

Still, the new administration has maintained various efforts to give American researchers incentives to work with the United States instead of China or other countries.

Former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine told a House committee last week that 73% of graduate engineering students are foreign-born, alongside 28% of science and engineering faculty and half of the postdoctoral workers doing much of America's scientific research.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/22/us-scientists-feared-compromised-china/