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U.S. Medical Research Agency Fires 
Dozens of Scientists with Financial 
Ties to China

JUNE 16, 2020|JUDICIAL WATCH


Dozens of scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 
the U.S. government’s handsomely funded medical research 
agency, have been fired over their secret financial ties to 
Communist China. It is not clear how long they went undetected 
or how much taxpayer-funded research they stole, but so far 
54 scientists have been booted for failing to disclose a troubling 
financial arrangement with a foreign government. In the 
overwhelming majority of cases—93%—the cash came from 
China, according to an ongoing NIH investigation that started 
two years ago. Also, in most of the probes the targets were 
Asian men in their 50s. The bulk of the ousted researchers 
received generous grants from the NIH, a federal agency 
with a $41.7 billion annual budget.

The probe, launched in the summer of 2018, is being conducted 
by Dr. Michael S. Lauer, Deputy Director for Extramural Research 
at the NIH. It mainly focuses on 285 active grants distributed 
to institutions in 27 states and 59 cities, totaling $164 million. 
Investigators singled out 399 “scientists of possible concern” 
and found that 133 (70%) had an “undisclosed grant” from 
a foreign government and 102 (54%) had an “undisclosed 
talents award.” More than 150 committed other NIH violations. 
Nine percent of the researchers concealed ties to a foreign 
company and 4% had an undisclosed foreign patent. Around 
three quarters of those investigated had active NIH grants 
and almost half of the scientists had at least two grants funded 
by American taxpayers. Every year the NIH 
invests tens of billions of dollars in medical research by 
giving around 50,000 grants to more than 300,000 researchers 
at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools and other 
institutions throughout the country. Only 10% of the agency’s 
budget supports projects conducted by scientists in its own 
lab in Bethesda Maryland.

Less than a year ago, a congressional investigation found 
that the NIH is among the government agencies that have 
long permitted Communists working in the U.S. to steal billions 
in taxpayer-funded scientific research. Others include the 
National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of 
Energy’s (DOE) national laboratories. For years all have 
been deeply impacted by Chinese infiltrators stealing valuable 
research, according to a scathing U.S. Senate report that 
describes the probe’s findings. Investigators determined that 
billions of dollars in scientific research funded by American 
taxpayers has been stolen by China right under our noses 
and the U.S. government has no viable plan to stop the 
ongoing theft of the highly valued intellectual property. In the 
meantime, the publicly funded work is helping the Communist 
nation meet its goal of becoming a world leader in science 
and technology. “This report exposes how American taxpayer 
funded research has contributed to China’s global rise over 
the last 20 years,” the document states. “During that time, 
China openly recruited U.S.-based researchers, scientists, 
and experts in the public and private sector to provide China 
with knowledge and intellectual capital in exchange for 
monetary gain and other benefits.”

While the Chinese Communists run their illicit operation on 
our own soil, the federal government’s grant-making and law 
enforcement agencies do little to stop it, which makes the 
NIH’s probe long overdue though it only considers a tiny 
portion of its multi-billion-dollar grants. Besides the FBI 
practically ignoring the violations, the government research 
agencies impacted by the costly crimes have failed to 
develop a coordinated response to mitigate the ongoing 
threat, Senate investigators found. “These failures continue 
to undermine the integrity of the American research 
enterprise and endanger our national security,” Senate 
investigators determined. China uses hundreds of 
government-funded talent recruitment plans—specifically 
mentioned in the new NIH probe—to incentivize individuals 
engaged in research and development in the U.S, transmit 
information in exchange for salaries, research funding, 
lab space and other perks. The Communists then use the 
American research for their own economic and military gain. 
An example is Chinese talent recruitment members who 
downloaded sensitive electronic research files before 
returning to China, submitted false information when applying 
for grant funds and willfully failed to disclose receiving 
money from the Chinese government on U.S. grant applications. 
One Chinese talent recruitment member removed 30,000 
electronic files before heading back home. Another filed a 
patent based on U.S. government-funded research and 
hired other Chinese recruitment plan members to work on 
American national security projects. The NIH has not 
revealed specifics on the recently fired scientists with ties 
to China nor have the culprits been identified.

Chinese infiltrators have been stealing valuable research 
from the U.S. government for decades. In fact, more than 
20 years ago Judicial Watch helped expose a 
Chinese Communist scientist (Wen Ho Lee), who stole 
nuclear secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 
New Mexico, among the world’s largest science institutions 
and the nation’s key nuclear weapons research facility. 
The Bill Clinton Justice Department refused to prosecute 
Lee because then Attorney General Janet Reno claimed 
the accusations against him were racist. 
Judicial Watch represented the whistleblower, Notra Trulock, 
responsible for launching an investigation into Lee’s actions. 
Trulock was the DOE’s intelligence operations chief and 
Clinton administration officials defamed him by accusing 
him of being a racist to cover up Lee’s repeated and 
embarrassing security violations.