What ails the NIH peer review study sections and how to fix the review process of the grant applications

The concern has been on my mind for a while, but I had procrastinated putting it down on paper till now. It was the recent announcement by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Scientific Review on the proposed changes to the review criteria of the grant applications submitted to the NIH study sections that provided the impetus to write this opinion article. The Christmas holidays provided the time needed to write it. Accordingly, "NIH proposes to reorganize the (current) five review criteria into three factors" as follows: