Scientists Call Charges Against NIH Virologists ‘Chilling’

Federal charges against two virologists have sparked public outcry among scientists concerned about NIH researchers being targeted by the Trump administration.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges against Vincent Munster, PhD, and Claude Kwe, PhD, alleging the pair had transported undeclared inactivated mpox (or monkeypox) virus on a flight into the U.S. and made false statements to federal law enforcement about doing so.

The criminal complaint outlining these charges alleges non-compliance with NIH policy on the importation of biological materials. “Personal, civil and criminal penalties have been established for willful violation of regulations related to biological transport,” the complaint noted of NIH guidance.

The researchers now face a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison, the DOJ announced.

Since then, other virologists have expressed concern over the charges, suggesting they’re reflective of the targeting of scientists under the Trump administration.

“This is extremely chilling — virologists being targeted for what appears to be minor (if any) ‘offenses,'” Kristian Andersen, PhD, an evolutionary virologist at Scripps Research, wrote in a post on Bluesky.

For instance, the inactivated samples in question are “harmless,” he noted. “And very specifically — such samples do not contain the virus itself,” he added in part. “It is nothing more than a soup of nucleotides, proteins, and whatever else may be in an inactivated sample taken from humans.”

“As for the ‘lying’ part, I can’t speak to that as I was not in the room, however, as I will outline, this part is likely due to misunderstandings and down to the fact that the investigators seem very unfamiliar with how research is done,” Andersen further wrote.

Angela Rasmussen, PhD, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, similarly told Science that “Inactivated monkeypox viruses routinely are used as a control in diagnostic tests or to develop the assays,” noting that Munster’s lab has published in this area.

“Stepping up to fight outbreaks of the world’s deadliest emerging viruses doesn’t count for much these days if you’re a politically useful target,” she contended in her own post on Bluesky. “To my colleagues & my fellow Americans: now it’s Vincent & Kwe,” she wrote. “Next maybe it’s you.”

In announcing the charges against Munster and Kwe, the DOJ noted that 53-year-old Munster, a citizen of the Netherlands, is the head of the Virus Ecology Section at the NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, Montana, and that Kwe, a citizen of Cameroon, is a research fellow in Munster’s section.

RML has recently come under fire from Republican lawmakers, an animal rights group, and Make America Great Again influencer Laura Loomer after a monkey with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever allegedly bit a researcher there in November 2025, Politico reported.

The present charges related to mpox were unsealed in federal court in Detroit last week.

According to the criminal complaint, though guidance permits non-infectious biological material to be hand-carried on aircraft, “the NIH does not recommend or encourage this practice.”

NIH staff who intend to do so must adhere to specific requirements related to foreign import and customs requirements, declaration of materials, proper packaging and marking of materials, pre-arranged screening with the Transportation Security Administration, written approval from airlines, and obtainment of a transfer certificate, the complaint further stated.

“I cannot comment on the specifics of this case, but ABSA has long supported research standards and laboratory protocols that keep researchers, their staff and the public safe,” Anne-Sophie Brocard, PhD, president of ABSA International, the Association for Biosafety and Biosecurity, said in a statement to MedPage Today.

HHS referred a request for comment regarding suggestions that the charges against Munster and Kwe were politically motivated to the FBI.

Legal counsel for Munster declined to comment. Legal counsel for Kwe similarly reserved comment, noting that, “[a]t this point, our only statement is that Mr. Kwe is presumed innocent and we will await future proceedings before commenting further.”

The charges against Munster and Kwe follow those announced by DOJ in April against a top aide to Anthony Fauci, MD, at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In that indictment, David Morens, MD, was charged with multiple federal crimes that accused the former career scientist of using his private email to evade Freedom of Information Act requests related to discussions on bat coronavirus research grants.

At the time, Jeremy Berg, PhD, a former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, told MedPage Today that while it wasn’t good form for Morens to put in writing his request to shift to personal email, the prosecution seemed “excessive.”

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