The House subcommittee investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic has urged a criminal investigation into Dr. Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, ahead of a Wednesday hearing, and the Manhattan-based nonprofit has released a large amount of documents related to controversial virus experiments in Wuhan, China.
Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the Coronavirus Pandemic Select Subcommittee, has been released. 59 page report Interview transcripts with six National Institutes of Health (NIH) staff and scientists involved in ecohealth research, including: Daszak himself.
EcoHealth has received millions of dollars in federal grants to conduct research around the world. That includes more than $4 million for his NIH project titled “Understanding the Risks of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”
The project, which began in 2014, was conducted at the now infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which modified a SARS-like virus to make it 10 times more infectious. could not”.
NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak — Who Was He? Interview by the House Coronavirus Subcommittee — Revealed to Congress that in 2021, EcoHealth violated the terms of its grant at its Wuhan laboratory, leading to the suspension of the grant.
On the same day that Tabak disclosed this information, the NIH removed on its website the agency’s long-standing definition of gain-of-function research that increases the transmissibility of viruses.
The report also accused former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci (who was also interviewed by the subcommittee in January) of “playing semantics” with the definition of gain-of-function research. are doing.
“EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak has mismanaged American taxpayer funds and should never be funded by American taxpayers again,” Wenstrup said in a statement.
“Dr. Daszak and his organization conducted dangerous gain-of-function research at WIV, intentionally violated the terms of a multi-million dollar NIH grant, and jeopardized the national security of the United States,” he said. added.
In addition to calling for formal disbarment and a criminal investigation by the Justice Department, Wenstrup’s subcommittee also recommended eight improvements to the federal grant process to “strengthen the biosafety and biosecurity of high-risk research.” Recommended.
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