A research firm connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, which has been at the center of the COVID lab leak theory, has been awarded a federal grant from the U.S. government to continue its research on bat coronaviruses. This comes despite the termination of its contract with the U.S. by former President Donald Trump in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The renewed grant of $2.3 million to the EcoHealth Alliance has faced backlash from certain members of Congress. Chairs of the Energy and Commerce House Committee have openly criticized the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for granting millions of dollars to the research firm to conduct lab work on samples from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth, said he believes the lab leak theory is “extremely unlikely based on the evidence” and that “there’s no smoking gun” to indicate its veracity. Daszak also added that the funding would be used purely for lab work and to analyze samples that were already collected, asserting that these researchers will not go into the field to collect new samples.
In order to receive the four-year grant, EcoHealth has committed to refraining from sub-contracting work to China or engaging in “gain of function” research. However, some members of Congress view this as careless spending of taxpayer money.
“It’s absolutely reckless that the NIH has renewed a grant for EcoHealth Alliance given their negligence and the breach of their contract with the NIH on the coronavirus research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Morgan Griffith, chair of the Oversight Subcommittee, said in a statement.
