Federal internal investigators have uncovered alarming failures by universities to require scientists doing taxpayer-funded research to disclose when they also pocket money from China and other foreign countries.
The Health and Human Services Department Inspector General said the failure to enforce disclosure rules exposes critical biomedical research to theft by China.
Joanna Bisagier, deputy regional inspector general who worked on the report, said the widespread disregard for government rules was unanticipated and she did not know if it was attributable to grantees’ ignorance, recklessness, or malice.
“We were not expecting quite a large percentage of grantees who failed to comply with the federal requirements regarding disclosure of foreign financial interest and support,” Ms.