A 'hit list' of more than 150 National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded scientists conducting behavioral research on HIV/AIDS transmission, homosexuality and drug abuse is stirring anger and fear in the scientific community.

The Traditional Values Coalition, which says it represents more than 43,000 US churches, compiled a list of what it calls “smarmy,” “prurient” and “provocative” research and is demanding that the NIH justify funding the projects. In response, the NIH has asked some of the researchers to write summaries defending their work.

“The list is a source of concern for researchers on two levels,” says Ken Mayer, director of Brown University's AIDS program. “It is making scientists anxious about whether their research will be targeted, and it is creating disincentives to developing effective HIV-prevention programs.”

To prevent the spread of AIDS, it is important to understand triggers and cultural influences on behavior, Mayer says. “Two decades of carefully done research of what works and not in HIV prevention tells us it must be culturally specific,” he says. The coalition is allowing ideology to get in the way of data-driven science, he adds.

Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, a researcher at the University of California in San Francisco, says an NIH program officer told her that her current grant was not under question, but she might have to be concerned about future grants. She studies adolescent risk judgment and HIV infection.

Even those scientists who don't agree with all the research projects say the list questions the peer-review process. “The peer-review process needs to prevail,” says Halpern-Felsher.

The list is only the latest in a series of efforts by conservative religious organizations to censor science that they find distasteful or morally repugnant, says Judith Auerbach, vice president of public policy at the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

In July 2003, the House of Representatives narrowly missed pulling funding from five research grants on sexual behavior. At a Congressional hearing in early October, NIH director Elias Zerhouni was asked to provide a written explanation for a number of grants, after which he was given the longer 'hit list', says Auerbach. The upcoming NIH reauthorization hearings can also be used to strengthen, add to, or define the outer limits of funding for certain research areas, Auerbach notes.

“We are concerned with the larger context in which the list is appearing,” she says. “Where is this all going?”