Comment Policy

To maintain a respectful dialogue, we've posted the guidelines of our comment policy below. In short

  • Stay focused. All viewpoints are welcome, but comments should remain relevant to NIAID.
  • Be respectful. Personal attacks, profanity, and aggressive behavior are prohibited. Instigating arguments in a disrespectful way is also prohibited.
  • Tell the truth. Spreading misleading or false information is prohibited.
  • No spam. Repeated posting of identical or very similar content in a counter-productive manner is prohibited — this includes posts aggressively promoting services or products.
  • We retain the discretion to determine which comments violate our comment policy. We also reserve the right to remove and/or not allow comments to get posted. The views expressed within posted comments do not necessarily reflect those of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or the federal government.
  • Comments must not be posted if they contain
    • Partisan political views
    • Commercial endorsements
    • Discriminatory, racist, offensive, obscene, inflammatory, unlawful or otherwise objectionable statements, language or content.

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.

Please note that there are two primary avenues for public and media inquiries:

  1. Public inquiries email
  2. Media inquiries email

See Contact Us for more information.

This comment policy is valid for all discussions on any NIAID-managed forum. Thank you for taking the time to review our comment policy. We encourage your participation in our discussion and look forward to an active exchange of ideas.

Reporters are asked to send questions to the necessary media office through their normal channels and to refrain from submitting questions here as comments. Reporter questions will not be posted nor answered.

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