Exclusive: NIH ousts infectious-disease leaders as COVID scientists face US charges

Three senior officials at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases were offered reassignment outside the institute or resignation. The departures add to earlier senior losses at the National Institutes of Health, including the ousting of Jeanne Marrazzo, who succeeded Anthony Fauci as NIAID director. With the new departures, scientists in most senior positions at NIAID are expected to have vacated their roles, including officials in eight of ten top leadership slots. Most of the affected scientists previously worked under Fauci, who led NIAID for 38 years before stepping down in 2022. Career scientist reassignments are described as highly unusual for NIH, and some scientists worry about increasing political influence over science at an institute with a US$6.6 billion yearly budget.

"Three senior officials at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have been given the choice to either accept reassignment outside the institute or resign, sources at the NIAID have told Nature. The three officials are the latest high-ranking NIAID scientists to lose their positions since President Donald Trump began his second term as president in January 2025."

"With the new departures, scientists in most of the senior positions at the NIAID will have been required to vacate their jobs, including officials in eight of the ten top leadership slots. All but one of the eight scientists worked under Fauci, who was director of the NIAID for 38 years before he stepped down in 2022."

"The reassignment of career scientists, such as the three who have just lost their positions, is highly unusual for the NIH. Career scientists are typically not replaced when presidential administrations change, and the forced reassignments worry some scientists, who fear a growing political influence over science at the institute, which has a yearly budget of US$6.6 billion."

"Betty Diamond, an immunologist at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York, says the lack of stability in leadership at the NIAID is concerning. "When you've spent years to put in place certain kinds of programmes and earn the trust and admiration of the scientific community, disruption for the sake of disruption is not useful," she says."

Read at Nature