1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Congress controls the purse. Terminate the Pentagon-NIH interagency agreement immediately and block any transfer of funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to the Department of Defense. This secretive deal — signed without notifying lawmakers or the public — would hand the Pentagon access to billions of dollars Congress appropriated for research on HIV, tuberculosis, influenza, and other deadly diseases. The Pentagon is facing a cash shortfall because of Trump's war of choice with Iran, which has already cost $37.5 billion by the administration's own likely undercounted figures. That is not the American people's problem to solve by gutting biomedical research. DoD already has congressionally funded programs for medical countermeasures — it does not need NIH's money. Demand a full accounting of how this deal was developed, who authorized it, and exactly how much taxpayer money the administration is trying to move. Then shut it down.