Bats and hamsters and cats, and mice!
Fort Collins, Colorado, could have become the next Wuhan, China, with dozens of lab accidents just this decade involving outbreak-prone pathogens in animals including coronaviruses, Zika and tuberculosis, according to a group that fights taxpayer-funded animal testing.
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The National Institutes of Health have renewed a grant to EcoHealth Alliance, an organization that funded experiments in Wuhan at a facility identified as the possible origin point of the COVID-19 pandemic.
EcoHealth announced the renewal on Monday, noting that the grant had been suspended in April of 2020 “due to concerns about continuing collaborative laboratory research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” EcoHealth’s experiments involved on-site work at the WIV and involved the study of coronaviruses.
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As increasing evidence suggests the COVID-19 virus likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI-08) is introducing a bill that would ban taxpayer dollars from funding so-called gain-of-function research — or at least pause funding.
Gallagher joined U.S. Representatives Henry Cuellar (D-TX- 28) and Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA-01) this week introduced the Pausing Enhanced Pandemic Pathogen Research Act, which would stall taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research for five years, providing time to evaluate the risks and for proper safety standards and protocols to be implemented, the lawmakers say.
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Nearly two years ago, I requested an investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) into EcoHealth Alliance —the shady organization that funneled taxpayer money into China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to conduct risky research on coronaviruses.
The investigation came after we learned that EcoHealth was spending our tax dollars on dangerous experiments in Wuhan, China, and was not disclosing information about those projects to the public, as required by law.
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A coalition of leading House Republicans is raising the alarm and demanding answers after the Biden administration approved another round of grant funding for research on coronaviruses and bats in Asia.
The lawmakers sent a letter to Anthony Fauci, who leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and serves as the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden.
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The federal government has awarded a controversial nonprofit a $1 million grant for research to help prevent future viral pandemics, an award that comes after more than two years of suspicions that the nonprofit in question may have been bankrolling certain types of highly dangerous coronavirus experiments in the city where the COVID-19 pandemic began.
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President Joe Biden has tapped former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins to serve as his top science advisor, several months after allegations that Collins and White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci were untruthful in their assertions that NIH did not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China.
Biden announced Wednesday Collins will serve as Science Advisor to the President and co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology “until permanent leadership is nominated and confirmed.”
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A scientist who worked with Peter Daszak at the EcoHealth Alliance has sent a whistleblower complaint to Senator Gary Peters, the Chairman of the Senate Whistleblower committee, stating that he believes Daszak works with the CIA and could in fact be “a double agent working on behalf of the Chinese government.”
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A United States government agency was still doling out millions of taxpayer dollars to the scandal-plagued EcoHealth Alliance as late as October of 2021, long after it became known that the Peter Daszak-led operation had funneled federal grant money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct risky gain-of-function research.
The Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded a $4.67 million five-year grant to EcoHealth Alliance in late 2021. A group of 26 House Republicans have sent a letter to USAID Administrator Samantha Power demanding answers.
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Two subordinates of Dr. Anthony Fauci raised concerns in May 2016 that a taxpayer-funded grant may include gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses at a Wuhan lab, but dropped the issue after nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance downplayed the concerns, documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.
National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Disease staffers Jenny Greer and Erik Stemmy told EcoHealth in a May 28, 2016, letter that a proposed grant “may include” gain of function research, according to documents obtained through a White Coat Waste Project information request. The letter requested EcoHealth provide its own “determination” as to whether its proposed experiments in Wuhan included gain of function research.
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A watchdog organization has filed requests via the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) this week to obtain information about the U.S. government’s funding of China-based gain-of-function studies that many believe have played a role in the origin of COVID-19.
Gain-of-function (GOF) research is experimentation that enhances the severity or transmissibility of a virus or other biological agent. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have said such work “poses biosafety and biosecurity risks [which] must be carefully managed,” though the NIH have justified funding GOF research “to help us understand the fundamental nature of human-pathogen interactions, assess the pandemic potential of emerging infectious agents and inform public health and preparedness efforts.”
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Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell said President Joe Biden’s 90-day COVID origins investigation is an insult to the career intelligence officials who have been probing the virus’s origins for well over a year and will continue to do so as new information comes in.
Grenell, who led the intelligence community during the early months of the pandemic from February to May 2020, said Biden’s May 26, 2021, directive to the intelligence community to “redouble their efforts” to determine the origins of the virus shows the president never paid attention to the evidence he likely received during his daily briefings.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top infections disease expert, resisted a directive from President Trump to cancel a research grant for a non-profit that was linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a new book detailing the Trump administration’s handling of COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump issued a directive to Fauci and the National Institutes of Health in April 2020 to cut funding for a study examining how coronaviruses jump from infected bats to humans after it was reportedly linked to the lab in Wuhan, suspected of having leaked the virus.
The exchange between Fauci and the White House is detailed in an upcoming book by Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta called “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History,” according to Fox News.
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An oversight board created to scrutinize research that would enhance highly dangerous pathogens did not review a National Institutes of Health grant that funded a lab in Wuhan, China, to genetically modify bat-based coronaviruses.
Experts say the NIH grant describes scientists conducting gain-of-function research, a risky area of study that, in this case, made SARS-like viruses even more contagious. Federal funding for gain-of-function research was temporarily suspended in 2014 due to widespread scientific concerns it risked leaking supercharged viruses into the human population.
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