The Biden administration today cut off federal funding for scientific nonprofits conducting research at the center of a credible theory that the COVID-19 pandemic began through a laboratory leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
This morning, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it is immediately suspending three grants provided to the New York-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) as it begins the process of barring the organization from receiving federal funding.
“Stop immediately” [EcoHealth Alliance] It is necessary to protect the public interest and is of such a serious or compelling nature that it affects EHA's current responsibilities,” HHS Undersecretary for Acquisition Henrietta Brisbon wrote in a memorandum signed this morning.
For years, EcoHealth has attracted enormous controversy for using federal grants to support gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in its Wuhan lab.
In a memo justifying the suspension of funding, HHS said EcoHealth had failed to properly monitor the work it supported in Wuhan. They also failed to properly report experimental results showing that the hybrid virus they created had an improved ability to infect human cells.
Republican lawmakers leading the investigation into EcoHealth's research in Wuhan and its role in starting the pandemic through a lab leak supported HHS's decision.
“EcoHealth promoted gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, without proper oversight and knowingly violated multiple requirements of the multi-million dollar National Institutes of Health. [NIH] Representative Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said in a statement: “It appears that false statements were made to NIH. These actions are completely abhorrent, indefensible and must be addressed.” With prompt action.”
Since 2014, EcoHealth has received a grant from the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to study bat coronaviruses in China. The initial scope of work included collecting and cataloging viruses in the wild and studying them in the laboratory to find which viruses could “leak” to humans and cause pandemics.
Soon after, EcoHealth used some of the viruses it collected to create “chimeras,” or hybrid viruses, that were better able to infect human lung cells in genetically engineered (humanized) mice.
So-called “gain-of-function” research has long been controversial because of its potential to generate lethal infectious disease pathogens. In 2014, the Obama administration cut off federal funding for gain-of-function research that could transform the SARS, MERS, and flu viruses into infectious respiratory diseases in mammals.
In 2016, the NIH flagged EcoHealth's work as likely violating the 2014 moratorium.
EcoHealth President Peter Daszak argued to the NIH at the time that the virus he was making had not been proven to infect human cells and was genetically different enough from past pandemic viruses that it was not subject to a moratorium by the Obama administration.
The NIH accepted this claim under the condition that EcoHealth cease its work immediately and notify the agency if any of the hybrid viruses showed increased viral growth in humanized mice.
But when these hybrid viruses showed increased viral growth in mice, EcoHealth did not immediately stop its work or notify the NIH. Instead, we waited until our 2018 annual progress report to make the results of the experiment public.
A second progress report submitted by EcoHealth in 2021, two years after the due date, also showed that its hybrid virus showed increased virus growth and improved mortality in humanized mice.
In testimony to the House of Representatives' coronavirus subcommittee earlier this month, Daszak claimed that EcoHealth attempted to report the results of its gain-of-function trials on time in 2019 but was cut off from the NIH reporting system.
The HHS memo released today says the forensic investigation found no evidence that EcoHealth was excluded from the NIH reporting system. The department also said EcoHealth failed to produce requested research notes and other materials detailing the work being done at the Wuhan lab and the lab's biosafety conditions.
This all violates EcoHealth's grant agreement and NIH grant policies, and thus warrants a ban on future federal funding, the HHS memo says.
The fact that EcoHealth will be stripped of its federal funding shouldn't come as much of a shock to anyone who watched Daszak's congressional testimony earlier this month. Even Democrats on the committee have publicly accused Daszak of misleading and manipulating facts about EcoHealth's work.
Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Coronavirus Subcommittee, welcomed EcoHealth's suspension in a press release, calling the nonprofit “failure to fulfill its obligation to meet the highest standards of transparency and accountability to the American public.” “I couldn’t do it,” he said. “
The HHS Office of Inspector General report already found that EcoHealth failed to submit progress reports on time or effectively monitor its subrecipient, the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In drawing Daszak, Democrats on the coronavirus subcommittee went to great lengths to avoid criticizing NIH's oversight of EcoHealth's work. The HHS debarment memo similarly focuses solely on EcoHealth's failure to comply with NIH policies and grant terms.
Nonetheless, it seems abundantly clear that the NIH failed to comply with its moratorium on gain-of-function funding in 2014 when it allowed EcoHealth to continue creating a hybrid coronavirus on the condition that it stop if the virus proved more virulent.
NIH further exacerbated these oversight failures by failing to stop funding EcoHealth when the nonprofit actually created a more virulent virus and by failing to track unsubmitted progress reports detailing further enhancement studies until two years later. I ordered it.
A House subcommittee investigation into NIH's role in the Wuhan lab's gain-of-function research is ongoing. Tomorrow I will be interviewing Lawerence Tabak, NIH Principal Deputy Director. In June, we plan to interview former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci.