There is no question that NIH’s funding of ME/CFS research has been minuscule relative to the size of the public health crisis. Review of ME/CFS grant applications at NIH has
drawn scrutiny from the public as one contributing factor. The public perception is that the grant review panelists have not been ME/CFS experts, and that this has led to the
unfair denial of qualified applications.
That first point—that grant reviewers are not ME/CFS experts—has a factual answer. The second allegation—that the lack of experts has negatively impacted funding decisions—is harder to answer with publicly available information. Nevertheless, in 2013 I embarked on a project to gather the evidence and answer these questions.
This article will focus on the first issue: who is reviewing the applications. My analysis of the data points to two main conclusions:
- A small subset of reviewers (experts and non-experts) wield disproportionate influence because they serve so many times.
- NIH changed its approach to ME/CFS application reviews in November 2010. Since that date, NIH has primarily appointed ME/CFS experts to evaluate the applications.
