Citing ‘quality of life,’ USCCB expresses concern about NIH’s proposed mission statement
November 29, 2023
» Continue to this story on USCCB
CWN Editor's Note: The Office of General Counsel of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has expressed concern about a proposal by the NIH (National Institutes of Health) to revise its mission statement.
The agency’s current mission statement is “to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.” The proposed mission statement is “to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and to apply that knowledge to optimize health and prevent or reduce illness for all people.”
The proposed deletion of the words “lengthen life” and “disability” may “risk giving the public the incorrect impression that NIH works to preserve the ‘quality of life’ but not also life itself, a situation in which the lives of some individuals would ‘count’ more than those of others, based on the determination of some authority,” the USCCB warned.
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