The research facility at the American National Institutes of Health, whose task is to study Ebola and other fatal infectious diseases, was instructed by the Department of Health and Social Welfare of the Trump Administration (HHS) in order to stop research.
According to E -Mail viewed by Wired, an integrated research facility in Frederick, Maryland was ordered to stop all experimental work until April 29 at 17:00. The facility is part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious disease (NIAID) and is located in the American Fort Detrick base. He conducts research on treatment and prevention of infectious diseases that are considered “high consequences” – which are a significant risk to public health. He has 168 employees, including federal employees and contractors.
E-mail, sent by Michael Holbrook, deputy director for high stopping at an integrated research facility, says that the laboratory ends the research on Lassa Fever, Sars-Cov-2 and Eastern encephalitis of horses, i.e. Eee, a occasional but mortal disease transmitted by Komar, which was reported in several northern US. “We collect as many samples as it is reasonable to ensure this tests,” says We -Mail. “We were not asked to kill any animals so that these animals would continue to be managed.” Holbrook did not answer Wired inquiry.
E-mail says that representatives of the Internal Security Department placed freezers in BSL-4 laboratories, which have the highest level of biological restriction used to study highly perilous microorganisms. In North America, there is only a dozen BSL-4 laboratories. These laboratories work with viruses that cause Ebola, Lassa and Marburg fever, types of hemorrhagic fever. The integrated research object is one of the few places in the world that is able to perform medical imaging on animals infected with BSL-4 agents.
“The victim for the research is huge,” says Gigi Kwik Gronvall, an elderly scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, regarding the closure. “If the matter is not used for some time, preparing them for reuse will cost more money.”
According to E -Mail, the director of the facility, Connie Schmaljohn, was also placed on administrative leave. Earlier, Schmaljohn was the senior scientist at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. She has over 200 research publications, and her work has led to several first -of -a -kind clinical trials. Schmaljohn also did not answer Wired inquiry.
In E -Mail delivered to Wired, Bradley Moss, communication director at the Office of Research Services in Nih, confirmed the stopping of research. “Nih has implemented a research pause-a viewing to safety-in an integrated research facility at Fort Detrick. This decision is in line with the identification and documentation of staff problems with the participation of contract staff, which violates the security culture, which caused that it will stop in these studies. During the stand-up, research will not be carried out, and access will not be restricted, and access will be restricted to secure. facility and its resources.
Moss did not develop the character of staff problems and said that he did not know how long the break in the research would take. Employees did not receive the expected date of re -opening.
Stopping research is the last disturbance of federal scientific agencies after the secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Announced at the end of March that 10,000 people in the enormous Federal Health Agency will lose their jobs, including the National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration and Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Mass exemptions are part of the restructuring plan implemented by the so -called government department Donald Trump (Doge).