Finally!
Finally, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak told Congress Thursday that U.S. taxpayers paid for the work done at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in the months and years before the COVID-19 pandemic. admitted to funding acquisition research.
Asked by Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) whether NIH grants to the Manhattan-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance supported gain-of-function experiments, Tabak replied: did. “
The response comes after more than four years of evasion by federal public health officials, including Tabak and former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, over controversial research that modified the virus to make it more transmissible. It was issued in response to what had happened.
“This is research… being done in so many labs across the country. It’s not regulated,” Tabak told Lesko. “And the reason it’s not regulated is because it poses no threat or harm to anyone.”
Dr. Bryce Nickels, a professor of genetics at Rutgers University and co-founder of the pandemic watchdog group Biosafety Now, said in a post that the exchange was “like two people talking in passing.” told the paper.
“Mr. Tabak was using his usual obfuscation and semantic manipulation, which is extremely frustrating and nonsensical,” Nickels said, adding that the NIH bigwig was trying to identify a potential pandemic pathogen. It added that it resists accountability for the potentially dangerous research it produces.
“Instead of addressing this directly, Mr. Tabak launched into an unhelpful response about how ‘gain of function’ encompasses many types of experimentation,” he added.
In July 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) barred the Wuhan Institute of Virology from receiving any federal funding for the next 10 years.
EcoHealth Alliance, whose mission statement says it is “committed to preventing pandemics,” had all its grants suspended for the next three years by HHS on Tuesday.
Dr. Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, said during a hearing earlier this month of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that his organization “has, by definition, never done gain-of-function research; I wasn’t there,” he testified.
But that claim directly contradicted Daszak’s own private correspondence, including a 2016 email celebrating the end of the Obama administration’s moratorium on gain-of-function research.
The head of EcoHealth was also called. Sworn testimony to the Coronavirus Committee By Dr. Ralph Barrick, a leading coronavirus scientist who initiated the study himself and declared it “absolutely” a gain of function.
In a letter to Congress in October 2021, Tabak wrote that the NIH had researched the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s research on “Can the spike protein of a naturally occurring bat coronavirus circulating in China bind to human ACE2 receptors in mice? He admitted that he had funded a “limited experiment” to test whether the model. “
Although he did not describe this as gain-of-function research, he revealed that EcoHealth had violated the terms of the grant by making bat coronaviruses modified with the SARS and MERS viruses 10,000 times more infectious. He clarified that he had not reported it.
The same day the letter was sent, the NIH removed its long-standing definition of gain-of-function research from its website.
Tabak also said in an October 2021 letter that “the sequence of the virus is genetically very distant from COVID-19,” but has since discussed other grant proposals from EcoHealth. , their genetic similarities are being closely examined.
Fauci has repeatedly denied that the Wuhan lab’s research involved gain-of-function experiments, clashed with Republicans in high-profile hearings, and in a closed-door conference with the House coronavirus committee earlier this year He has argued that he is “playing with the semantics” of the term.
“He needs to define the definition of gain-of-function research, because I have been going through this process for the past three years and have read numerous published papers on gain-of-function research and the creation of chimeras. Coronavirus Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said this in response to Fauci’s criticism in January.
The former NIAID director and White House medical adviser during President Biden’s administration was escorted by Capitol Police and lawyers to committee rooms for two days of interviews and for The Post’s coverage of gain-of-function research and pandemic lockdowns. A restriction that was repeatedly bypassed by asking questions.
In 2021, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) laid the blame at Fauci’s feet for evasions during several hearings.
“NIH has not and does not currently fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Fauci declared in May.
At a separate House hearing that same month, then-NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins testified that researchers at the Wuhan lab “have not been approved by the NIH to conduct gain-of-function research.”
“Of course, we are not aware of any other funding sources or other activities that they may have undertaken beyond the grants we approved,” Collins cautiously added at the time.
The ignorance about what experiments were conducted as a result of the NIH grant was highlighted by Daszak during a coronavirus subcommittee hearing last week.
EcoHealth leaders admitted that even before the pandemic began, they had not asked Shi Zhengli, a longtime collaborator and deputy director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, for virus sequences.
in him own closed room testimony Speaking to a House subcommittee on Thursday, Collins echoed Tabak’s comments, but added, “While there are general descriptions of acquisition of function that are used in scientific and public conversation, , it would not be appropriate for us to apply it to the following situations.” We’re talking about potential pathogens. ”
EcoHealth received more than $500,000 for research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology as part of a more than $4 million grant to study the emergence of bat coronaviruses from 2014 to 2024.
The subsidy was canceled in 2020 and reinstated in 2023, but was ultimately suspended and disqualified this week.
A House subcommittee is still investigating whether the coronavirus was accidentally leaked from a Wuhan lab, while the FBI, U.S. Department of Energy, and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the most likely cause of the pandemic. The directors are Dr. Robert Redfield and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.
Mr. Nickell also criticized Mr. Tabak on Thursday for still claiming that he has shown evidence that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a “wild animal market in Wuhan.”
“No credible scientist yet believes this. In fact, the wet market theory was even refuted by Ralph Barrick, the world’s leading coronavirus expert, in testimony in January,” Nickels said. said.
The Rutgers University professor said Thursday’s hearing highlighted the lack of oversight of scientific research into pathogens that pose a threat to humans, saying, as Wenstrup put it, “it is the responsibility of grant recipients to oversee themselves.” He added that it has become.
“It is pure insanity to continue to responsibly rely on the scientists and institutions conducting the research to analyze the risks and benefits of research that poses an existential threat to humanity,” Nickels argued.
“We have just experienced a devastating pandemic, which is probably due to [Pathogen with Enhanced Pandemic Potential] Do scientists want the public to trust that they can police themselves, even though they are in the lab? ” He flinched. “That’s complete and utter nonsense.”
Fauci is scheduled to answer questions about gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab and theories about the origins of the pandemic at a public subcommittee hearing scheduled for June 3.
