National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Description
Event Involvements
Events with structured involvement data
The National Institutes of Health appears as the target funder for Hoebuck's requested $115,000 study. NIH stands as the legitimate federal channel that could validate and resource the controversial research, making it the institutional prize in the bargaining.
Implicitly represented through the funding request and mention of an NIH‑run wider study.
NIH holds regulatory and funding authority; here it is being petitioned and potentially instrumentalized by a senator for political ends.
The NIH's involvement underscores how federal research funding can be drawn into political bargaining, risking perceived neutrality if used as a tradeable good.
Not explicit in scene; potential tension between mission‑driven peer review and political pressure to fund controversial studies.
The NIH is the potential funder Hoebuck asks to bankroll a larger study; it functions as the fiscal gatekeeper whose purse strings would convert the senator's demand from anecdote to formal research.
Represented implicitly as the agency that would administer the requested $115,000 grant.
Holds resource power—control over research funding—that can be leveraged politically; the White House and Congress negotiate access to those resources.
A decision to direct NIH funds under political pressure would undermine perceived scientific independence and alter norms for grant allocation.
Potential tension between scientific review standards and political pressures for earmarked or expedited funding.
The NIH is invoked as the institutional recipient of the $115,000 earmark Hoebuck demands. It serves narratively as the respectable, bureaucratic cover that makes a transactional request seem plausible and complicates a simple moral rejection.
Through the funding request described by staff and the invoked credibility of a Duke cardiologist's study.
The NIH as a funding agency is being pulled into political bargaining — its grant-making power is being leveraged by legislators seeking votes.
The NIH's involvement highlights how scientific funding can be politicized, risking public trust in both science and appropriations processes.
Implicit tension between scientific review processes and political pressure to fund constituency-driven or politically expedient projects.
The NIH is invoked as the institutional vehicle that would receive the $115,000 for the proposed 'remote prayer' study — its name is used to sanitize the request as legitimate research funding, even as staff debate the ethics of using taxpayer dollars this way.
Referenced indirectly — via the phrasing that federal research funds would be allocated to an NIH study.
NIH appears as an instrument of federal money; it does not act in the scene but its funding authority creates leverage for the senator's demand.
The NIH's invocation highlights how institutional funding mechanisms can be co-opted for political bargaining, exposing vulnerabilities in how research dollars become tools in legislative horse-trading.
Not shown directly, but implied tension between scientific review processes and political pressure to authorize specific, potentially unorthodox studies.
The NIH is named as the recipient of Hoebuck's requested $115,000 for a study on remote intercessory prayer; NIH's role is instrumentalized as the plausible channel for an earmark that converts a senator's vote into research funding.
Via the framing of a research earmark mentioned by staff (not by NIH personnel in the scene).
Portrayed as an institution whose funding can be leveraged politically — a resource the administration must decide whether to use as currency.
The NIH is pulled into a political bargaining exchange, illustrating how scientific institutions become pawns in legislative horse-trading and raising questions about the politicization of research funding.
Implied tension between scientific standards and political pressure to fund agenda-driven studies; not directly shown but strongly suggested.
The NIH figures as the institutional recipient of Hoebuck's earmark request; it is invoked as the plausible administrative vehicle for a dubious study, turning a scientific agency into a pawn in legislative horse-trading.
Referenced indirectly through staff description of the requested study and as the target agency for the $115,000 appropriation.
Instrumentalized by a senator’s leverage; lacks agency on-screen but is implicated as the object of political bargaining.
The scene highlights how research institutions can be dragged into petty politics, risking their reputations when appropriations are used to buy votes.
The NIH is central as the institutional target/source for the $115,000 appropriations requested by Senator Hoebuck for an intercessory prayer study; its existence in the argument converts a vote negotiation into an ethical policy question about federal funding priorities.
Represented indirectly through the proposed earmark and a referenced study; no NIH official appears—only the institution as a policy object.
A medium-power federal research agency that can be leveraged symbolically and financially by legislators seeking favors; it is a tool in political bargaining rather than an active negotiator here.
The NIH’s invocation highlights tensions over federal research funding being politicized, reflecting wider institutional vulnerabilities when research is drawn into transactional politics.
Not depicted on-screen, but implied tension between scientific standards and political pressure to fund constituency-driven studies.