"Ban on hunting for new viruses in wildlife is at odds with program’s mission, researchers say"
"In June, Amy Morrison received a message that startled her. The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) notified the University of California, Davis epidemiologist and medical entomologist that she might receive funding to rejoin a research network aimed at preventing outbreaks from becoming epidemics or pandemics—but that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had deemed “unsafe” and terminated in 2025.
“I thought it was fake,” says Morrison, who studies the interactions between humans and insects that carry the dengue virus and other pathogens in Peru.
The message was real. In the eventual budget compromise for this year, Congress had forced President Donald Trump’s administration to reinstate the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID) for at least another year. Morrison and other scientists would receive funding they had applied for in 2024.
In its new incarnation, however, CREID comes with a set of fresh rules that NIH says will make its work less risky, but that has dismayed scientists. For example, the restrictions prohibit CREID researchers from conducting “intentional ‘virus-hunting’ activities for novel viruses, especially in wildlife.” If they do “inadvertently” discover a new virus, they must immediately report the finding and seek permission to study it."
Jon Cohen reports for Science October 8, 2026.
