The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will question EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak at a hearing scheduled for May 1, the committee announced Thursday.
Daszak will testify before the subcommittee about his relationship with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and work on gain-of-function research. In addition to Thursday’s announcement, the committee said Daszak “appears to have lied to Congress” about his work in the Wuhan lab and gain-of-function research. (Related: American researcher in bed with Wuhan lab misleads Pentagon about civilization-threatening virus research)
“Lying to Congress is a federal crime,” Dr. Daszak reminded himself of this before the interview began. “We continue to directly refute the evidence that emerged,” the subcommittee said Thursday.
🚨Breaking news🚨
EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak will testify at the hearing on May 1, 2024.
Dr. Daszak will have to answer questions about the origins of COVID-19, dangerous gain-of-function research, and his ties to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. pic.twitter.com/CyTGoEBvDr
— Selective Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) April 4, 2024
In the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, EcoHealth Alliance helped funnel millions of taxpayer dollars to a Wuhan lab to study bat-based coronaviruses. A lab in Wuhan is at the center of a lab leak theory about the origins of the coronavirus. This theory suggests that the pandemic resulted from a virus stored in her WIV being released into the outside world by an accident.
Supporters also claim that critical information was withheld by former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci early in the coronavirus pandemic. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials and their allies have suppressed investigations into the lab leak since the pandemic began by restricting access to WIV and suppressing evidence.
The subcommittee accused Dr. Daszak of lying to Congress about his business dealings with the Wuhan Institute and his gain-of-function research efforts in a transcript of a private November 2023 interview. letter Addressed to Daszak.
Daszak argued that the pandemic was a natural occurrence and that his work only helped prevent it, not cause it. But proponents of risky gain-of-function research, in which viruses are genetically modified to make them more infectious and deadly, have failed to produce many examples of research that has a positive real-world impact.
Email conversations show that Daszak worked with Fauci and other scientists around the world to downplay the lab leak theory in the media early in the pandemic and increase support for the natural origin theory. It became clear that they were trying to curb its spread.
