HEALTH / VACANT FEDERAL POST : Perception of Political Tinge Makes NIH Job Hard to Fill

Being director of the National Institutes of Health--the nation’s premier biomedical research facility--was at one time considered among the most prestigious scientific jobs in the world. Now, it seems that the Bush Administration can’t even give the job away.

The post has been vacant for more than a year, the longest stretch in the NIH’s 100-year history, after Dr. James Wyngaarden, a Ronald Reagan appointee, left in July, 1989, at the request of the White House. The Bush Administration reportedly wanted to select its own choice for the post, but now there are no prospects in sight.

“The job has too many problems and not enough rewards,” said Dr. Howard Streicher, an AIDS researcher in the National Cancer Institute, one of the NIH’s 13 institutes.

Among other things, many believe that the job has become too politicized in recent years, with the director having to bend too often to the will of the White House. Early on, for example, some candidates were asked their views on abortion, a so-called litmus test that several aspirants found offensive. William H. Danforth, chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis and the brother of Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), took his name out of the running after he was so queried.

Such questioning “creates an environment that is very upsetting to people here,” said one NIH researcher who asked not to be identified. “It makes you concerned that whoever gets the job will be a political appointee rather than someone who is truly in the field.”

But one former NIH official, who left government for an academic job, maintained that “the job has a strong political component.”

The official, who once worked at the Department of Health and Human Services, said: “I could see during my time how important it was for an agency head to be well-connected to have his voice heard.”

Although the Administration now insists there is no litmus test--and that candidates are no longer asked about abortion--resentment over the early questions apparently has lingered. Further, in a related area, widespread opposition remains in the scientific community to the Administration’s continued ban on federal funding for research using fetal tissue.

Another factor making the job unattractive, some say, is that it has become too administrative, leaving little opportunity to keep a hand in bench science. This was one of the reasons that federal AIDS research chief Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, removed his name from consideration.

For whatever reasons, there is no question that the lack of a permanent strong leader at the NIH has had a serious demoralizing effect on the agency and on the non-governmental researchers who receive NIH grants.

Recently, nine Democratic members of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the NIH, wrote to Bush urging him to fill the position.

“The National Institutes of Health are too important to the health of the nation to permit the position of director to be trivialized by the political manipulations that have characterized the selection process up to this point,” the letter said. “We urge you to end the current disarray and petty machinations . . . .”

The person who eventually takes the job will confront numerous problems, among them a continuing budget shortage and the agency’s continuing inability to recruit senior investigators, largely because its salaries are not competitive.

“They want a fantastic, superb, respected scientific leader who will set direction and goals for biomedical research,” Streicher said. “They also want a super administrator able to handle every problem without offending anybody. It’s impossible.”