47Bloomberg Businessweek June 17, 2019
The National Institutes
of Health and the FBI
are purging Chinese scientists
from U.S. research institutions.
Civil liberties issues
aside, this is no way
to cure cancer
By Peter Waldman
Illustration by Jee-ook Choi
THE NEW
RED
SCARE
The dossier on cancer researcher Xifeng Wu was thick with
intrigue, if hardly the stuff of a spy thriller. It contained find-
ings that she’d improperly shared confidential information
and accepted a half-dozen advisory roles at medical institu-
tions in China. She might have weathered those allegations,
but for a larger aspersion that was far more problematic: She
was branded an oncological double agent.
Inrecentdecades,cancerresearchhasbecomeincreas-
inglyglobalized,withscientistsaroundtheworldpoolingdata
andideastojointlystudya diseasethatkillsalmost 10 million
peoplea year.Internationalcollaborationsareanintrinsicpart
oftheU.S.NationalCancerInstitute’sMoonshotprogram,the
government’s$1billion blitz to double the pace of treatment
discoveries by 2022. One of the program’s tag lines: “Cancer
knows no borders.”
Except, it turns out, the borders around China. In January,
Wu, an award-winning epidemiologist and naturalized
Americancitizen,quietlysteppeddownasdirectorofthe
CenterforPublicHealthandTranslationalGenomicsatthe
UniversityofTexasMDAnderson Cancer Center after a three-
month investigation into her professional ties in China. Her
resignation,andthedeparturesinrecentmonthsofthree
othertopChineseAmericanscientistsfromHouston-based
MDAnderson,stemfroma Trumpadministrationdriveto
counterChineseinfluenceatU.S.researchinstitutions.The
aimis tostanchChina’swell-documented, costly theft of U.S.
innovation and know-how. The collateral effect, however, is
to stymie basic science, the foundational research that under-
lies new medical treatments. Everything is commodified in
the economic cold war with China, including the struggle to
find a cure for cancer.
Behind the investigation that led to Wu’s exit—and other such
probes across the country—is the National Institutes of Health,
in coordination with the FBI. “Even something that is in the fun-
damental research space, that’s absolutely not classified, has an
intrinsic value,” says Lawrence Tabak, principal deputy direc-
tor of the NIH, explaining his approach. “This pre-patented
material is the antecedent to creating intellectual property. In
essence, what you’re doing is stealing other people’s ideas.”
TheNIH,theworld’sbiggestpublicfunderofbasicbio-
medicalresearch,wieldsimmensepoweroverthenation’s
health-researchcommunity.It allocatesabout$26billiona
yearinfederalgrants;roughly$6billion of that goes to can-
cer research. At a June 5 hearing, NIH officials told the U.S.
Senate Committee on Finance that the agency has contacted
61 research institutions about suspected diversion of propri-
etary information by grant recipients and referred 16 cases,
mainly involving undisclosed ties to foreign governments,
forpossiblelegalaction.Waysofworkingthathavelong
beenencouragedbytheNIHandmanyresearchinstitutions,
particularlyMDAnderson,arenowquasi-criminalized, with
FBI agents reading private emails, stopping Chinese scien-
tists at airports, and visitingpeople’shomestoaskabout
their loyalty.
Wu hasn’t been charged withstealing anyone’s ideas, but