Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) have asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate China's pandemic research institutions, including one based in Wuhan. It calls for an investigation into more than $50 million in defense grants. The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged in 2019.
“A comprehensive review of these issues will require the Department of Defense to assess the possibility that they may result from either sourcing technology from Chinese companies or dangerous experiments being conducted in foreign laboratories with substandard safety conditions. “This is critical to identifying potential national security threats,” Ernst and Gallagher wrote in Thursday's letter. Defense Department watchdog Robert Storch.
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2024, passed last month, directs the IG's office to review Department of Defense funding for dangerous research into “chimeric versions” of pathogens and viruses that have pandemic potential in foreign countries over the past decade. It included amendments proposed by members of Congress.
“Tens of millions of Department of Defense dollars have been given to our enemies. This is not just a massive accounting error, it is a waste of taxpayers and a threat to national security,” Gallagher said. he told the Post.
“The amendments that became law last year require the Department of Defense Inspector General to get to the bottom of this problem, and now is the time to solve this problem, protect taxpayer money, and defeat our adversaries. It's time to act with a sense of urgency to ensure that no money is given away, just like the Chinese Communist Party. ”
The law specifically targets Chinese government-linked research at the now infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Beijing.
“Due to the lack of accuracy and completeness of federal spending data, only the Department of Defense OIG can conduct such an investigation,” the lawmakers said, before explaining past attempts to quantify the maximum amount. I told Mr.
In May 2023, Ernst's office, in a joint investigation with taxpayer watchdog group Open the Books, found that more than $490 million in U.S. funds leaked to Chinese organizations between 2017 and 2022, including It was announced that $51.6 million was found to have come from the Department of Defense.
But Ernst and Gallagher said, “This may be just the tip of the iceberg in taxpayer dollars flowing to China from the Department of Defense and other government agencies, contractors, and grant recipients.” There is.
Through grants from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Manhattan-based EcoHealth Alliance funded more than $1.4 million in research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology from 2014 to 2014. We used American tax dollars to provide this. 2021 will also include dangerous gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses.
Government Accountability Office Confirmed Amount of funding raised by the monitoring group “White Coat Waste” last year first exposed April 2020 Grant.
But these are not disclosed on USAspending.gov, a public database of all government grants, and EcoHealth has a “record of circumventing federal reporting regulations and concealing the scope of its research projects,” Ernst said. said Mr Gallagher.
In 2018, EcoHealth submitted a grant proposal to a Department of Defense agency called Project DEFUSE to test the ability of bat coronaviruses to increase their transmissibility to humans.
The proposal omitted plans to conduct experiments on a SARS-like virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the document said. Acquired by U.S. Right to KnowEcoHealth President Peter Daszak said excluding the Chinese researchers involved “downplays the non-U.S. focus of this proposal.”
Although the grant application was rejected, EcoHealth has funded more than $47 million in research projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology since 2008. According to USAspending.gov.
a January 2023 Audit The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services IG's office said EcoHealth hid nearly $600,000 in funds sent to the Wuhan lab and when its research “showed evidence of accelerated virus replication.” It was also revealed that the NIH was not immediately notified.
Both officials who oversaw the grant, former NIH director Francis Collins and former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci, have repeatedly denied it. These experiments constituted a “gain of function” study.
In total, Ernst and Gallagher concealed the fact that the scientific research nonprofit “spent more than $1 million of U.S. taxpayer money on dangerous research on bat coronaviruses at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.” said.
They noted that the Department of Defense “currently provides $3 million to EcoHealth for research.”Virus spillover from wildlife in the Philippines, $3 million for virus spill biosurveillance in India and $5 million for research into “high-risk pathogens” in Liberia. ”
“Taxpayers have a right to know how much of their money is going to China and why Washington continues to collect and create a deadly supervirus, both of which pose a threat to national security. It could be given,” Ernst told the Post.
“The coronavirus outbreak, which likely started with a leak from China's Wuhan lab, should have given pause on tampering with the pathogen that could lead to a pandemic, but the Biden administration is funding dangerous research around the world.” continues to provide.”
Last year, the Department of Energy and the FBI both concluded that an accidental laboratory leak was the most likely explanation for the COVID-19 pandemic, while other U.S. intelligence agencies have Either it could not be identified or it was “not adapted to the laboratory,” he said. ”
“We cannot trust the mad scientists at EcoHealth to touch taxpayer money or bats again,” Ernst added. “This investigation is a first step toward bringing long-overdue transparency and accountability to the indefensible ways in which the U.S. government spends its defense dollars.”
The Department of Defense Inspector General's Office did not respond to requests for comment.
