House Republicans Investigate NIH Spending on Public Relations

The NIH is facing heat from House Republicans for spending nearly $1 billion over the past five years on public relations contracts.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee announced Tuesday that it’s opening a new investigation into the National Institutes of Health’s spending on public information and communication services (PICS). The agency doubled the potential value of these contracts in 2021 to respond to the pandemic. Total potential spending amounts to about $1 billion that’s spread out over 10 firms, including $300 million in public service announcements and advertising as part of a Covid-19 public health campaign.

In letters to the awardees, lawmakers said the information they had didn’t say enough about whether the agency was using the money to advance “legitimate government communications.”

The letters do not appear to flag any specific allegations of wrongdoing. But lawmakers are looking to determine how the NIH uses contract public relations firms and whether these are an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars.

“Government contracts for public relations, consulting, and media services can devolve into a kind of de facto public relations service for the personal aggrandizement of senior leadership. They can be used to promote an agency’s brand and image instead of being used to communicate accurate information to the public,” the letter said.

Lawmakers pointed to a 2020 federal watchdog report that criticized the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’s handing of public relations contracts under Seema Verma, who served as CMS administrator under President Donald Trump.

While that contract was just a fraction of what the NIH has spent at $6.4 million, the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found violations in federal contracting rules. Verma allowed contractors to make management decisions, improperly treated them as employees, and paid some questionable costs, the inspector general said.

E&C Republicans launched a similar investigation about a decade ago.