Comment from Emily Scott

[200.205, 200.340] To Whom it May Concern: I am a professor working in the field of biochemistry and medicinal chemistry who has been funded by NIH for decades and has served as a reviewer on a variety of study sections over that time as well. I am writing in my personal capacity to oppose the proposed revisions to sections 200.205 and 200.340 that would undermine the integrity of federal grant review processes and federal science agencies' ability to identify and fund impactful research. Although my grant topics are probably basic enough not to be actually BE problematic for political review, some of the language "diverse substrates" could be seen as problematic by a political, non-scientific evaluator. Additionally, the best judges of the nations' best science is scientists working in the relevant field, not political appointees without this knowledge. The potential for termination at any time means that faculty researchers will not be able to mentor PhD students who must be supported for the ~5 years of their PhD. This will decimate the next generation of scientists. Faculty researchers also won't be able to have the continuity of funding to take on high-risk, high-payoff research that often results in the most important scientific advances. It wastes money because after a termination/shutdown, reagents go bad, animals and cultures must be sacrificed, and these resources will be permanently lost in some cases and require much more money to rebuild them to restart research. I am concerned that requiring political approval of grants would weaken the independence and credibility of peer review by allowing scientific merit to be overridden by shifting political priorities. It could make funding decisions less transparent, less predictable, and more vulnerable to viewpoint-based favoritism, discouraging researchers from pursuing important work that may be politically inconvenient. Over time, this would erode trust in federal grantmaking and damage the integrity of the research enterprise.