Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is asking the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to take a closer look at the millions of dollars in research grant money it doles out — and to whom the money is being sent. Grassley’s request follows the resignation of an Iowa State University scientist last fall who was accused of faking his findings in AIDS vaccine research.
Grassley says, “I want to make sure that what we’re doing is clamping down on the agencies that are supposed to be policing these grants, to make sure they go to people that are legitimate, not fraudulent, doing what the grants are supposed to do.” Grassley was also upset by the former ISU scientist was only banned from taking part in federally-financed research for three years.
In his letter to HHS, Grassley wrote: “This seems like a very light penalty for a doctor who purposely tampered with a research trial and directly caused millions of taxpayer dollars to be wasted on fraudulent studies.”