She was wrongly snagged by Trump’s word police

BERLIN

- Mark Z. Barabak, Tribune News Service

Nisha Acharya, an eye doctor and UC San Francisco professor, was at her campus clinic tending patients when a surprising email arrived. Her federal research grant had just been terminated, according to a reporter for the Washington Post, who wondered if Acharya had any comment. She was stunned.

Her research, into the workings of the shingles vaccine, didn’t seem remotely controversial. The $3-million grant was the second she'd received, after years of similar work. The National Institutes of Health, which awarded the grant and regularly reviewed Acharya’s performance, had been pleased with all she'd accomplished. Nevertheless, the NIH tersely informed the university its latest grant was among dozens terminated because the federal government, under President Donald Trump, would no longer support research focused on “why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment.”

Acharya's research had nothing to do with any of that. But the mention of “hesitancy” and “uptake” in her grant application — referring to the concern some cornea specialists had about the vaccine for those with shingles in the eye — was apparently all it took to snare Acharya in a dragnet mounted by the Trump administration word police. Perhaps “hesitancy” and “uptake” generated an AI response, or triggered some on-the-hunt algorithm. Acharya can’t be entirely sure, but there's no evidence an actual human being, much less any sort of expert on vaccines or shingles, reviewed her grant proposal or assessed her work. She's gotten no explanation beyond that one, formulaic March IO email dispatched to the university. “I lost funding immediately,” Acharya said.