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Comment Policy

NIH reserves the right to modify this policy at any time.

We encourage your comments and the robust, and respectful, conversation that is sure to come from those comments.

This is a moderated site, and all comments will be reviewed before they are posted to ensure compliance with our comment policy. Therefore comments may not show up immediately.

Our comment policy is designed to encourage respectful, constructive dialogue.

  • Be respectful. Comments will not be posted if they contain personal attacks, partisan political views, commercial endorsements, or discriminatory, racist, offensive, obscene, inflammatory, unlawful or otherwise objectionable statements, language or content.
  • Stay focused. All viewpoints are welcome, but comments should remain relevant to providing input on the potential new ideas for NIH Common Fund Programs listed on this site. Only comments that relate to the topic being discussed will be posted.
  • Tell the truth. Comments that contain or spread misleading or false information will not be posted.
  • Refrain from seeking medical advice. Comments that seek a specific diagnosis or request medical advice will not be posted. Please visit http://health.nih.gov/ for information on health research at NIH.
  • Be relevant. Repeated posting of identical or very similar content in a counter-productive manner (i.e. spam) is prohibited.

We retain the discretion to determine which comments violate our comment policy. We also reserve the right to remove and/or not post comments. The views expressed within posted comments do not necessarily reflect those of the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or the federal government.

We recognize that the Web is a 24/7 medium, and your comments are welcome at any time. However, given the need to manage federal resources, i.e., your tax dollars, moderating and posting comments should only be expected to occur during regular business hours. Comments submitted after hours or on weekends will be read and posted as early as possible; in most cases, this means the next business day.

Reporters are asked to send questions to the NIH media office through their normal channels and to refrain from submitting questions here as comments. Reporter questions will not be posted or answered.

Thank you for taking the time to review our comment policy. We encourage your participation in our discussion and look forward to hearing from you.

This page last reviewed on December 9, 2022