Mpox smuggling case prompts congressional scrutiny of National Institutes of Health

House committee seeks records after two agency scientists were charged over undeclared samples

The US House committee on energy and commerce is “examining concerns” about the National Institutes of Health after two NIH scientists were charged with allegedly smuggling mpox into the United States and misleading investigators.

Federal law enforcement alleges that Dr Vincent Munster, 53, a Dutch national and chief of the virus ecology section at the NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Montana, and Claude Kwe, 38, a research fellow from Cameroon, transported vials containing monkeypox, now known as mpox, into the country without declaring them to customs and then “lying about it”.