Small RFK’s HHS orders lab to study deadly infectious diseases to stop research
The Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) directed research institutions within the National Institutes of Health to study Ebola and other deadly infectious diseases.
According to an email viewed by Wired, Frederick’s comprehensive research institute was told to stop all experimental work by 5 p.m. on April 29. The facility is part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and is located at Fort Ditrick, a U.S. Army Base. It conducts research on the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases considered “high consequences” that pose significant risks to public health. It has 168 employees, including federal workers and contractors.
The email was sent by Michael Holbrook, deputy director of high containment at the integrative research institute, who said the lab is terminating research on LASSA fever, SARS-COV-2 and East Horse encephalitis, or EEE, a rare but deadly mosquito-derived disease, reported in several U.S. states in the northern United States. “We collected as much sample as it was justified to ensure these studies were valuable,” he said in an email. “We were not asked to euthanize any animals, so these animals will continue to be managed.” Holbrook did not respond to the wired investigation.
The email said DHS representatives were padlocking freezers in the BSL-4 laboratory, those used to study highly dangerous microorganisms with the highest levels of biosafety containment. There are only about twelve BSL-4 laboratories in North America. These laboratories work with viruses that cause Ebola, LASSA fever and Marburg, the type of hemorrhagic fever. Comprehensive research institutions are one of the few places in the world that can medically image animals infected by BSL-4 agents.
“The sacrifice of research is huge,” said Gigi Kwik Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “If things aren’t used for a while, it’s going to cost more money to be ready to use them again.”
According to the email, Connie Schmaljohn, the facility’s director, has also been sent to administrative leave. Previously, Schmaljohn worked as a senior research scientist at the Institute of Infectious Diseases at the U.S. Army Medical Institute. She owns more than 200 research publications, and her work has led to the first vaccines in several clinical trials. Schmaljohn also did not respond to Wired’s investigation.
Bradley Moss, director of communications at the NIH Research Services office, confirmed the pause in the research activity in an email statement to Wired. “NIH has implemented a research pause—referred to as a safety stand-down—at the Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick. This decision follows identification and documentation of personnel issues involving contract staff that compromised the facility’s safety culture, prompting this research pause. During the stand-down, no research will be conducted, and access will be limited to essential personnel only, to safeguard the facility and its resources.”
Moss did not elaborate on the nature of the personnel problem and said he did not know how long the research was suspended. Staff have not received the expected reopening date.
The massive layoffs at HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are part of a restructuring plan that President Donald Trump calls Government Efficiency (DOGE).
