Comment from Garret FitzGerald

[200.205, 200.340] To Whom it May Concern: I am a professor of medicine and pharmacology and I lead the nation's first institute for translational science. 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. Our merit based science funding transformed treatment of cancer, blindness and infectious disease. Political oversight undermines peer review and would have stalled our progress with RNA technology that saved lives in COVID and now has delivered the first in vivo gene editing of an inherited disease. Recruitment into clinical trials, the development of technology and a scientific workforce require a predictable period of stable funding. Ceasing this funding stream for political reasons leaves patients and scientists stranded and is ethically abhorrent. Merit based peer review is the cornerstone of American leadership in science. Dilution of this process for partisan politics represents a threat to the health and wealth of the American people.