Scientists have lost their jobs after NIH probe into foreign ties
As an American that has received his fair share of indoctrination and with no deep love for a lot of China&#x27;s domestic as well as foreign policy, I am curious about a few things, sincerely:<p>1. Are these as egregious as we are led to believe?
2. Are these really a sign of deep foreign influence?
3. Can it be that these are actually just minor oversights of a large number of individuals without needing to jump to the worst conclusion of these scientists being spies (as one other comment has already asserted)?<p>I am not trying to water down what may be a serious case of foreign influence, but if this is something common and&#x2F;or easy to fall into, it&#x27;s possible this is an overreaction and may cause harm to the research community.  The article is worded in a way that doesn&#x27;t clarify if the focus was only on Chinese influence or if this was broadly designed to capture any foreign influence.<p>I ask these questions to broaden the discussion because oftentimes research and academic centers can have overly broad requests on disclosure which can be very invasive and, truth be told, if everyone answered fully and clearly, a lot of people would probably be excluded, and that begs the question if these are essential or not in my humble opinion.<p>To be clear, I am very much for limiting foreign influence on domestic policy, whether it&#x27;s via research or otherwise, but I think it bears practicing greater skepticism when something may just be a proxy for &quot;action&quot; rather than sincere positive results.