Kennedy Department Funds Research with Russian Lab Linked to Plague Study
A department led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. awarded $779,689 to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for research in partnership with a Russian institute. The Russian institute has previously collaborated on plague research, and a lab worker there died under mysterious circumstances, prompting a quarantine of approximately 200 people. The funding was distributed in two installments in 2025 and 2026, raising concerns about potential links between the NIH and the Russian laboratory.