- The National Institutes of Health has “systematically frustrated” government oversight of research on dangerous pathogens, Rutgers University professor of chemical biology, Richard H. Ebright, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
- The P3CO Review Framework was created in 2017 after a three-year pause in government funding for research that intentionally makes pathogens more deadly or transmissible.
- An NIH grant that involved modifying bat-based coronaviruses and transferring $ 600,000 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the pandemic bypassed the P3CO review because the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, led by Anthony Fauci, did not flag the project for review.
A supervisory board created to examine research that would increase highly dangerous pathogens did not review a grant from the National Institutes of Health that funded a laboratory in Wuhan, China, to genetically modify bat-based coronaviruses.
Experts say the NIH fellowship describes scientists conducting research to gain function, a risky area of study that in this case has made SARS-like viruses even more contagious. Federal funding for job search research was temporarily suspended in 2014 due to widespread scientific concerns that there was a risk of leaking supercharged viruses in the human population.
Federal funding for the job search research was resumed in late 2017, after the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Control and Supervision Framework (P3CO) was formed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The review board is tasked with critically assessing whether concessions that involve the increase in dangerous pathogens, such as coronavirus, are worth the risks and whether adequate safeguards are in place.
But the NIH sub-agency that granted the grant to the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance to study Chinese bat coronaviruses chose not to refer it to the P3CO committee, an NIH spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation, which means that research received federal funding without an independent review of the HHS Board.
“This is a systemic problem,” Richard Rutgers University professor of chemical biology, Richard H. Ebright, told the DCNF, referring to the gap in the review structure.
To Review. “
Dr. Anthony Fauci leads NIAID and Dr. Francis S. Collins leads NIH.
An NIH spokesman said his sub-agency did not signal the granting of EcoHealth for independent review by the HHS review committee.
“After careful analysis of the concession, NIAID determined that the research on the concession was not a function gain survey because it did not involve increasing the pathogenicity or transmissibility of the studied viruses,” the spokesman told the DCNF.
“We would not submit research proposals that did not meet the definition, otherwise we would need to present everything,” said the spokesman.
How federal oversight of job gain research is circumvented
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is at the center of widespread speculation that COVID-19 could have accidentally leaked from a laboratory to the human population. EcoHealth’s grant to study bat-based coronaviruses in China included the transfer of $ 600,000 to WIV.
If the EcoHealth concession had been subjected to the P3CO review, an HHS panel would have independently assessed the concession and, if necessary, recommended additional bio-containment measures to avoid possible laboratory leaks – or even recommended that the concession be totally denied.
WIV is a level 4 biosafety laboratory, the highest level of bio-containment certification, but U.S. Embassy officials issued two diplomatic cables warning of inadequate safety in the laboratory after a visit in 2018. One of the cables warned that the laboratory works with bat-based coronaviruses posed the risk of a new SARS-like pandemic, according to The Washington Post.
An attachment to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 source report released on Tuesday describes WIV’s work using “recombinant viruses” in tests involving bat coronaviruses, which Ebright said were descriptions of function-gain research.
The U.S. government stopped funding for job-gain research in 2014 after laboratory workers were accidentally exposed to anthrax by the Centers for Disease Control, according to The New York Times. The incident came on the heels of widespread scientific protests in 2011, when it was revealed that laboratories in Wisconsin and the Netherlands were intentionally modifying the H5N1 bird flu virus so that it could jump between ferrets more effectively.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a White House press conference, conducted by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, at the White House’s James Brady Press Briefing Room on 21 January 2021. (Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images)
The federal government funded job gain survey was resumed in 2017, after the implementation of new supervisory procedures. The review structure divided the supervisory responsibilities between two groups – the funding agency (NIAID in the case of the EcoHealth grant) and the P3CO Review Committee, an interdisciplinary group convened by HHS.
The committee is responsible for recommending whether a research grant involving job gain needs to include any additional risk mitigation measures, an HHS spokesman told DCNF. But the committee is kept in the dark about any grant until the funding agency signals one for its review.
The P3CO framework does not require the HHS review committee to take a second look at determining NIAID after its review that the EcoHealth grant does not involve job gain research.
The NIH spokesman said it would be “misleading and inaccurate” to suggest that NIAID was required to notify the HHS review committee of its determination.
An HHS spokesman confirmed that the department’s P3CO Review Committee only reviews research grants scheduled for further review by funding agencies such as NIAID. The spokesman did not respond when asked whether the review committee was aware of the EcoHealth grant.
Ecohealth has a history of manipulating bat-based coronaviruses. The group’s chairman, Peter Daszak, said this during a podcast interview filmed in Singapore, weeks before the first reported cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan in December 2019.
“You can manipulate them in the lab quite easily,” said Daszak. “The Spike protein drives a lot of what happens with the coronavirus. Zoonotic risk. So, you can get the sequence, you can build the protein – and we worked with Ralph Baric on [the University of North Carolina] to do that – and insert the backbone of another virus and do some work in the lab. “
Ebright told DCNF that NIAID was wrong in determining that the EcoHealth grant did not involve increasing the transmissibility of coronaviruses based on Chinese bats. He said that the project summary for fiscal year 2019, which referred to “coronavirus” in vitro and in vivo infection experiments “,” * unequivocally * required a risk-benefit review according to the HHS P3CO framework. “
Other scientists said the NIH-funded work by EcoHealth in China involved research into gaining function in bat-based coronaviruses.
“It is difficult to overemphasize that the central logic of this concession was to test the pandemic potential of SARS-related bat coronaviruses by creating some with pandemic potential, either through genetic engineering or through, or both,” Drs. Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson wrote in June.
NIH ended the EcoHealth grant in April 2020. NIH deputy director for extramural research, Michael Lauer, told the group in a letter that the agency “does not believe the results of the current project are in line with the program’s objectives and the agency’s priorities ”.
Fauci said during a hearing before the House Energy & Commerce Committee in June that the EcoHealth concession was canceled “because the NIH was instructed to cancel it”.
“I don’t know why, but we were told to cancel,” said Fauci.
Fauci told Politico after the hearing that former President Donald Trump’s White House ordered the NIH to cancel the concession.
HHS official acknowledges that government oversight of GOF research is flawed
The only known member of the HHS P3CO Review Committee is its chairman, Chris Hassell, the senior scientific advisor to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparation and Response at HHS. He revealed his involvement in a lecture in January 2020 before the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.
Hassell said during the lecture that the current definition for a potential pandemic pathogen is “very restricted … which resulted in only a few influenza-related proposals being obtained” for the committee’s review.
“I will probably be more frank than appropriate – I think that is very narrow,” said Hassell, who then suggested that the government could be funding job-gain research that his committee has not examined.
“I think that could be revisited and, again, there could be some definition issues,” said Hassell.
When funding for job gains was stopped in 2014, 21 research projects were stopped. But the NIH created exceptions for 10 of them, according to The New York Times.
After funding continued in 2017, only two projects were approved according to the P3CO Framework. Both projects deal with the flu virus, according to the NIH.
It is unclear how many research grants have been reviewed according to the structure. An NIH spokesman said they did not comment on or discuss applications for unfunded grants.
It is also unclear who else serves on the HHS P3CO Review Committee. Hassell said in January 2020 that the committee is made up only of federal officials, but said that disclosing their names could be detrimental to their work.
“As good as it is good to disclose individual names, which has been suggested, if it scares someone who is willing to serve on that committee, it would be harmful,” said Hassell.
An HHS spokesman said Hassell was not available for comment.
Eleanor Bartow contributed to this report.
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