An
internal investigation found that the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
did not execute proper oversight of the nonprofit group EcoHealth
Alliance, which was awarded nearly $8 million in federal research grants to
study bat coronaviruses in China.
These
new records reveal that NIAID gave nine China-related grants
to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats
and was the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) top issuer of grants to
the Wuhan lab itself. “These documents are of world-wide interest, as
they suggest that the Wuhan lab had major bio-safety issues and the
American government was carefully monitoring its activities from a national
security perspective even while funding it,” said Judicial Watch
President Tom Fitton.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases officials were
concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan
Institute of Virology in 2016. The Anthony Fauci agency was also concerned
about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting
rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research
involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.
Records from the Department of Health and Human Services include “urgent
for Dr. Fauci ” email chain which cites ties between the Wuhan lab and
the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. They detail how Peter Daszak,
president of EcoHealth Alliance, was tied to the Wuhan lab and was
“funded for work to understand how coronaviruses evolve and jump to human
populations.”
