EXCLUSIVE — The National Institutes of Health is facing congressional scrutiny after two of its scientists were charged with allegedly smuggling vials of the infectious monkeypox virus and other biological samples into the United States, according to a copy of a letter shared exclusively with the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
NIH researchers Vincent Munster and Claude Kwe, both foreign nationals, are accused of conspiring to sneak undeclared biological material into the U.S. and lying to federal law enforcement about its content.
Munster and Kwe were flagged at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in January while returning on a commercial flight from the Republic of the Congo’s Brazzaville region, where a massive monkeypox outbreak was actively occurring.
According to the June 2 criminal complaint, Munster and Kwe falsely told Customs and Border Protection inspection officers, when questioned, that the large, black plastic case they were carrying simply contained “diagnostics and testing equipment.”
However, prosecutors say federal agents found it contained 113 vials stuffed inside Styrofoam coolers. According to the charging documents, of the 20 vials tested at the time of the complaint, FBI investigators determined that 17 of them concealed deactivated monkeypox virus, one contained the chickenpox virus, and two others contained human DNA.
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Munster, a Dutch citizen, was the chief of virus ecology at the NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a state-of-the-art biomedical research facility in Montana. Kwe, a citizen of Cameroon, worked with Munster as a research fellow within the site’s virology lab.
The two researched “emerging viral pathogens” and how they “cross the species barrier.” Their laboratory’s security level is ranked Biosafety Level 4, the highest level of biological containment. BSL-4 labs are designed to study dangerous, exotic, and airborne pathogens that can cause life-threatening, often fatal diseases in humans with no known cure.
If convicted of the conspiracy and false statement charges, Munster and Kwe face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison.
NIH has said that the two individuals’ access to NIH facilities has since been terminated and that they acted on their own accord.
In response to the incident, Republican leadership on the House energy and commerce committee sent NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya a letter Tuesday, requesting information about the biomedical research agency’s oversight protocols and its awareness of any research activities involving those imported pathogens.
According to a copy of the letter, committee leaders questioned whether anyone at NIH had communicated with Munster or Kwe about their travel plans to Congo, and, if so, whether they would turn over documentation of their correspondence.
Among other questions, the committee asked whether the NIH possessed any information prior to the pair’s arrest indicating that either individual might transport biological material into the U.S. without authorization.
The letter instructed Bhattacharya to provide a list of past and present NIH-funded infectious disease research involving the two former NIH scientists, as well as any foreign research trips taken by them during their tenure with NIH-affiliated institutions, including travel details naming the countries visited on each trip, the stated purpose of said trip, and whether they were granted permission to return with biological samples.
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Committee leaders also pressed Bhattacharya on the agency’s official guidance outlining NIH policy and standard operating procedures related to the acquisition of research specimens from foreign countries, employee reporting obligations regarding cross-national research collaborations, and disclosure requirements for importing biological material.
The committee directed Bhattacharya to provide a written response and all requested records by June 30.
Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce; John Joyce (R-PA), chairman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee; and Morgan Griffith (R-VA), chairman of the health subcommittee, signed the letter.
“The announcement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan that two NIH researchers have been charged with conspiring to smuggle Mpox and other biological material into the country is deeply concerning,” Guthrie, Joyce, and Griffith said in a joint statement to the Washington Examiner. “And what’s even worse is how a leading scientist allegedly misled CBP officers given the risks of improperly transporting such materials into our country.”
“For these reasons and more, the Committee has questions about the incident, what actions are being taken in response to the incident, and what is being done to safeguard our country,” the committee leaders added.
