Who Reviews ME/CFS Applications for NIH? Jennie Spotila

Cheshire · Feb 5, 2019

There is no question that NIH’s funding of ME/CFS research has been minuscule relative to the size of the public health crisis. Review of ME/CFS grant applications at NIH has drawn scrutiny from the public as one contributing factor. The public perception is that the grant review panelists have not been ME/CFS experts, and that this has led to the unfair denial of qualified applications.

That first point—that grant reviewers are not ME/CFS experts—has a factual answer. The second allegation—that the lack of experts has negatively impacted funding decisions—is harder to answer with publicly available information. Nevertheless, in 2013 I embarked on a project to gather the evidence and answer these questions.

This article will focus on the first issue: who is reviewing the applications. My analysis of the data points to two main conclusions:

A small subset of reviewers (experts and non-experts) wield disproportionate influence because they serve so many times.

NIH changed its approach to ME/CFS application reviews in November 2010. Since that date, NIH has primarily appointed ME/CFS experts to evaluate the applications.

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Peter Trewhitt · Feb 5, 2019

Cheshire said: ↑

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An important piece of work. Thank you for sharing it here.

Andy · Feb 14, 2019

Because of various developments in the UK and elsewhere, I’ve neglected goings-on back home. I’m working on a couple of things now but in the meantime I decided to post something typically insightful that Jennie Spotila published last week on her blog, Occupy M.E.

It’s a frustration with this project that I don’t have the time to look into every aspect I’d like to. So it’s great that people like Jennie are poking around and digging into documents and trying to understand what’s going on. I’m glad to be able to re-post this here (with her permission, of course).
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http://www.virology.ws/2019/02/13/trial-by-error-spotilas-take-on-nih-grant-reviewers/

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Who Reviews ME/CFS Applications for NIH? Jennie Spotila

Cheshire Moderator Staff Member

Peter Trewhitt Senior Member (Voting Rights)

Andy Committee Member

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Who Reviews ME/CFS Applications for NIH? Jennie Spotila

Cheshire Moderator Staff Member

Peter Trewhitt Senior Member (Voting Rights)

Andy Committee Member

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