Edward McSweegan



Edward McSweegan Ph.D., is an American microbiologist, science writer and author of fiction.

In 1988, McSweegan joined the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and eventually rose to the rank of program officer for Lyme disease. However, in 1995, he began using his personal Website to denounce what he felt was unscientific and incorrect information about the illness which was being put out by the NIH. He reserved particular scorn for the Lyme Disease Foundation, which he denounced for putting out "wacko" theories about the disease. In response, the NIH removed him from his post as Lyme disease program officer and transferred his research grants to other workers. Dr. McSweegan is listed as the author of a letter submitted to the American Society of Microbiology's "Microbe Magazine" in November, 2003, entitled "Lyme Disease: a Potential Polymicrobial Infection," which questions the value of long term antibiotic therapy for chronic Lyme disease.

A year later, it stripped him of his post in an unrelated program and transferred those grants as well. The NIH said it reassigned him to a post as director of the U.S.-Indo Vaccine Action Program. However, McSweegan told the Washington Post in 2003 that he didn't know he was director of the program, and was assigned tasks better suited for an intern.

McSweegan's criticisms continued unabated, and the NIH finally suspended him for two weeks in 1997, the first step in firing him. However, the NIH's own lawyers felt there was no basis for firing him. The NIH later sued him for slander, but lost. McSweegan later won a countersuit against the NIH. Through all of this, he has continued to receive positive job reviews.

Despite what he described as a situation that was "part Orwell, part Kafka and part Dilbert," McSweegan turned his attention to writing fiction. In 2002, he released his first novel, Deliberate Release (ISBN 1403343535), about the small-scale release of a monkeypox virus. Later in 2002, he released another, Alpha Transit (ISBN 1403341656), about an effort to colonize interstellar space.

Dr. McSweegan's interests also include plague. He is author of "Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease."

Reports by the Post and CBS News led Senator Chuck Grassley, then the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to demand that McSweegan be put back to work. In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, Grassley questioned the NIH's uses of taxpayer money, saying it was unacceptable for the NIH to "come rattling a tin cup asking for more money" when it was forcing taxpayers to "pay for full-time novelists." The NIH promised to investigate the allegations. McSweegan has also frequently commented on public health issues. In 2004, McSweegan suggested that the mysterious "English sweating sickness" may have been an outbreak of anthrax poisoning. He hypothesized that the victims could have been infected with anthrax spores present in raw wool or infected animal carcasses, and he suggested digging up the victims for testing. He has also criticized the Centers for Disease Control for investigating morgellons.

As a science writer, McSweegan has written two book reviews for Salon.com.

According to the NIH website as of April 2007, "Edward McSweegan was a program officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He graduated from Boston College in (B.S.) and has degrees in microbiology from the University of New Hampshire (M.S.) and the University of Rhode Island (Ph.D.). He was a National Research Council Associate and did postdoctoral research at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Md. Dr. McSweegan served as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Diplomacy Fellow in the U.S. State Department and helped negotiate science and technology agreements with Poland, Hungary and the former Soviet Union. After moving to the National Institutes of Health, he continued to work on international health and science projects in Egypt, Israel, India, and Russia. Currently, Dr. McSweegan manages a portfolio of infectious disease training grants, NIAID’s bilateral Vaccine Action Program with India, and represents NIAID in the HHS Biotechnology Engagement Program (BTEP) with Russia and related countries. He is a member of AAAS, the American Society for Microbiology, and the D.C. Science Writers Association."