Mmore than two dozen Republican members of the House demanded that the independent watchdog of the Department of Health and Human Services investigate the National Institutes of Health’s response to concerns raised about taxpayer-funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, one of the potential origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
Republican Party members called for an “immediate and thorough investigation into the NIH’s response to biosafety issues” at Wuhan’s laboratory, asking HHS Deputy Inspector General Christi Grimm to verify what funding Wuhan’s laboratory received from the States United in the past, whether the laboratory was still eligible for US taxpayer support and whether US funding continued.
Peter Daszak, a member of the World Health Organization’s coronavirus research team that has worked with the Wuhan lab for years and helped direct NIH funding for bat coronavirus research through its EcoHealth Alliance, criticized the government Biden for appearing skeptical of WHO’s preliminary findings after two weeks of investigation in Wuhan, the city where the new coronavirus was first detected, and defended China for outlets linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
Republicans pointed to a “growing belief among experts, including the US State Department, that the pandemic … may have been caused by dangerous coronavirus research that went wrong in the bioagent laboratory run by the Chinese Communist Party” . U.S. embassy officials in China raised concerns in 2018 about biosafety in Wuhan’s laboratory.
“We are seriously concerned about the NIH’s relationship with EcoHealth and WIV, and the Agency’s handling of claims that the COVID-19 pandemic was potentially caused by an NIH-funded laboratory at WIV,” said GOP members. “We are also alarmed that WIV is eligible to receive additional NIH funding by 2024.”
The GOP asked the HHS watchdog to investigate when NIH first learned that the coronavirus experiments were conducted in the Wuhan laboratory, whether NIH officials reviewed the Wuhan laboratory experiments to assess compliance with pandemic guidelines. HHS when NIH became aware of biosafety concerns and whether NIH employees communicated with the EcoHealth Alliance or the laboratory to coordinate messages to respond to the laboratory’s leakage hypothesis. Lawmakers asked when the eligibility of the Wuhan lab to receive NIH funding ends, whether it is currently receiving NIH support and how much NIH funding it has obtained.
The HHS inspector general’s office did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment in response to the letter, which had a list of signatories led by the Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
China denies that COVID-19 left the laboratory, questions whether it originated in China and has proposed conspiracy theories about the new coronavirus originating in frozen foods or with the U.S. military.
CIRCUMSTANCIAL EVIDENCE OF HUMAN ERROR ‘FAR OUTWEIGHS’ NATURAL SURVEY OF COVID-19
Matthew Pottinger, deputy national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, argued that “circumstantial evidence” that COVID-19 originated from human error, such as an accidental escape from Wuhan’s laboratory, “far outweighs” evidence that it was a natural outbreak. He added: “We have strong reason to believe that the Chinese military was conducting secret experiments on animals classified in that same laboratory.” A State Department report noted that Wuhan’s laboratory “has a published record of conducting ‘function gain’ research to create chimeric viruses.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan criticized China for blocking coronavirus data but refused to support declassified US intelligence.
EcoHealth Alliance received at least $ 3.4 million from 2014 to 2019 and funded research in the Wuhan laboratory. NIH told the Washington Examiner Wuhan’s laboratory is not an NIH beneficiary, but the EcoHealth Alliance received donations from NIH and then provided a grant to Wuhan’s laboratory. The agency said its relationship “is with the primary recipient of NIH funding”, such as the EcoHealth Alliance, and “not with the recipient of subprograms”, such as Wuhan’s laboratory. The NIH said it “does not participate in establishing the subaward terms” and the grant recipient “is directly responsible for the performance of the project”.
The agency said the concession to the EcoHealth Alliance ended on April 24, but was reinstated on July 8, although “all activities related to the concession were immediately suspended until the EcoHealth Alliance provided information and documentation demonstrating that the EcoHealth Alliance and WIV satisfied NIH concerns about non-compliance ”with award requirements.
“After a careful review of the concession, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases determined that the research in the concession was not research for gaining function because it did not involve increasing the pathogenicity or transmissibility of the viruses studied,” NIH said, adding that this research was not subject to its “job-gain research funding break” or research funding structure.
Wuhan’s laboratory maintains a foreign guarantee with the NIH Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare. NIH told the Washington Examiner that “a guarantee does not determine whether an organization can or will receive a grant,” but that means, the agency said, that Wuhan’s laboratory complies with NIH’s policy on the use of laboratory animals.
Jen Psaki, Biden’s press secretary, was asked on Tuesday whether job-gaining research facilities, such as Wuhan’s laboratory, should be eligible for US funding.
“We support robust international research [into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic]. We also took steps at the State Department to ensure that we have a full team at our embassy in Beijing to ensure that we have eyes and ears at the scene, ”replied Psaki. “There is no upfront or planned financing to go [Wuhan] installation at the moment, so I don’t have any additional updates beyond that. ”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OF THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
NIH did not immediately respond to Washington Examiner’s questions about Wuhan’s laboratory receiving US funds and whether assessments of US intelligence on the origins of coronavirus have any bearing on any relevant decisions.
WHO team leader Peter Ben Embarek said this month that the possibility that the coronavirus escaped Wuhan’s laboratory was not worth further investigation, emphasizing that a jump from one animal to another animal for humans was the most likely. But WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said more studies on the possibility of a leak in the laboratory are needed.
Pottinger criticized the WHO, arguing that “when it comes to this investigation of origins, unfortunately, we are seeing a panel that has been sent to China that is deeply conflicted.”