Research group linked to Covid lab leak fears will receive $2m in US taxpayer cash
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is under fire after extending its grant for bat coronavirus research with EcoHealth Alliance — the nonprofit organization at the center of the Covid lab leak theory.
New York City-based EcoHealth — run by British zoologist Peter Daszak — announced today that the study will resume nearly three years after its “termination” by then-President Donald Trump.
Under the terms of the grant, the organization will receive $2.3 million funded by U.S. taxpayers evenly spread over the next four years to work on “bat-origin coronaviruses.”
However, EcoHealth has agreed not to outsource work to China, collect new virus samples from the wild, or conduct “gain of function” research — deliberately altering viruses to make them more contagious or deadly.
The move has already drawn fierce criticism. Experts told DailyMail.com that the move “betrays American taxpayer confidence.”
Dr. Peter Daszak (pictured left next to Dr. Anthony Fauci) oversees the EcoHealth Alliance, which funneled NIAID funds to WIV. The nonprofit now receives an additional $2.3 million in US tax dollars over the next four years. The money will go to the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School in Singapore
The question of whether the global outbreak started with an overflow of wildlife sold at the market or leaked from the Wuhan lab just eight miles across the Yangtze River has sparked fierce debates about how to contain the next pandemic. prevent. New studies point to a natural overflow in the Huanan game market. Positive smears from floors, cages and counters also track the virus back to stalls in the southwest corner of the market (bottom left), where animals with the potential to harbor Covid were sold for meat or fur at the time (bottom right)
Some speculate that bat virus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology may have fueled the pandemic.
Dr. Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, told DailyMail.com that the funding would be used purely for lab work and to analyze samples already collected and sequenced at WIV and other institutes around the world.
As part of the scholarship, EcoHealth will receive $576,290 each year for the next four years for the scholarship title “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”
In total, the nonprofit has received $4.3 million as part of this grant, with 1.1 million distributed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)
The NIH ended the grant with EcoHealth in April 2020, led by Trump, who endorsed the lab leak theory.
It was later reinstated but suspended indefinitely while the intelligence community searched for the origins of Covid.
Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School, at the southernmost tip of the island nation in Southeast Asia, will be the sole recipient of the grant for the next four years, said Dr Daszak.
“They have real expertise in understanding how different viruses can bind to human cells,” he said of the school.
Their work will examine hundreds of bat coronavirus samples collected from Asian countries such as China.
These researchers do not go into the field to collect new samples, but only work with what already exists in their databases.
‘What we want to know is that it is possible [one of these viruses] actually infect a human being and they have a way of doing it, just using computers, or just simple lab work,” continued Dr. Tie bag.
‘[This work] does not create a contagious virus. It only uses the viruses’ proteins to see if they bite.’
The native Briton said the recombinant virus experiments conducted at WIV – which “everyone was so concerned about” – will not be carried out.
These experiments combine properties of multiple virus strains to create a new strain.
Some have criticized these types of experiments as dangerous “gain of function” research that is heavily restricted worldwide.
Dr. Daszak denies that WIV conducted gain-of-function research using EcoHealth funds.
However, he said the current political situation and discussion of a potential lab leak have made it unwise to continue this research in the short term.
“We actually said that we’re proposing not to do those experiments because I think there’s so much debate about it right now. There is so much controversy about them,” he explained.
“We’re in a situation where the public hasn’t really decided yet whether those experiments should take place, and what the value is and what the risk is.
‘So we’re not going to do those kinds of experiments with these viruses for the next four years. And I think it’s a very fraught situation politically in the US, and we felt it was the best way to move forward with the work.”
He claimed that the NIH did not force EcoHealth to drop this type of study, but that the nonprofit did so of its own accord.
This scholarship will involve more requirements than is typical for NIH scholarships.
Dr. Daszak said EcoHealth and its partner must now update the NIH twice a year on the current status of its research and how the experiments are leading them toward the grant goal.
Normally, this report is only needed once a year.
EcoHealth will also need to get approval for all of its expenses using NIH funds before receiving the money.
“Typically, you spend the money and then invoice NIH, just like any contractual invoice,” Dr. Daszak explains.
“Now we have to send a statement on what we’re going to spend the money on, the NIH approves, then we spend the money and bill them.”
He said he “understands” why the NIH is making such demands.
However, when DailyMail.com asked him to explain why the NIH would put such guardrails on EcoHealth, he didn’t answer and referred questions to the agency.
As part of the extension agreements, EcoHealth is also barred from continuing research in China.
The decision to renew the nonprofit’s grant was met with opposition from parts of the scientific community.
Pictured: The Wuhan Institute of Virology, where crucial data was erased by Chinese scientists
Dr. Richard Ebright, a biologist at Rutgers University and longtime proponent of lab leaks, told DailyMail.com, “It’s a disgrace that EcoHealth Alliance — an organization that may be partly responsible for the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic … and U.S. government contracts.”
A report from the Office of the Inspector General released in January found that the organization had misused about $89,000 in funding.
He noted that at the request of U.S. officials, the nonprofit was unable to provide lab notebooks and other records of lab research.
Dr. Daszak denied that this failed registration was related to the suspension of EcoHealth’s grant. He said EcoHealth had no role in obstructing data related to the origins of the pandemic and information collected at the IPH.
He said misuse of funding was only a small portion of the total grant.
“The violations were egregious, repeated and harmed US health security and US national security, possibly causal factors in the origins of Covid, and certainly causal factors in hindering research into the origins of Covid,” continued Dr. Ebright.
Dr. Bryce Nickels, professor of genetics at Rutgers, told DailyMail.com, referring to the grant’s earlier cessation, “The U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee has documented multiple serious violations by EcoHealth Alliance of the contractual terms of the NIH grant. it was just renewed.
This decision damages the confidence of American taxpayers and completely undermines the stated goals of the NIH to “exemplify and promote the highest level of scientific integrity, public accountability and social responsibility in the conduct of science.”
Justin Goodman, senior vice president of the White Coat Waste Project, said: “The smart taxpayer-funded grant that funded the EcoHealth Alliance’s dangerous animal experiments in Wuhan that likely caused the pandemic must be withdrawn, not refunded.
“Taxpayers should not be forced to fund this reckless, rogue lab contractor who is wasting money, breaking the law, mistreating animals and endangering public health, and we are now working with Congress to cut the wallet permanently.
‘Stop the money. Stop the madness.’
While the lab leak theory was initially dismissed as conspiracy and xenophobic, many scientists have come up with the idea that the virus may have escaped in an accident at the IPH.
The research facility is located less than 10 miles from an animal slaughter market where the first batch of human cases were clustered.
According to recent reports, the FBI and the US Department of Energy both currently believe the pandemic is man-made.
Some experts also argue that Covid’s unique spike protein, which it uses to infect humans, shows hallmarks of human engineering.
Direct and convincing evidence for a natural or man-made origin has yet to emerge, but the lack of evidence has caused fierce debate to spread.
Chinese officials, including WIV, have refused to cooperate in the hunt for the origins of Covid.