Sen. Roger Marshall shoves Pentagon inspector general friday’s letter Investigating all U.S. taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research in China, as well as “undisclosed and undisclosed pathogens and to investigate specimen collections.
Mr. Marshall (R-Kansas) sent a letter to Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch, calling for $50 million in Pentagon grants received by Chinese agencies for pandemic pathogen research between 2014 and 2023. We requested that the current research on the above be expanded.
The Kansas Republican said in the letter that his office’s investigation into the origins of the coronavirus revealed that the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) received orders from Chinese companies between October 2014 and March 2020. He said thousands of laboratory samples purchased “in secret” had been unearthed.
The samples, which contained potentially deadly pathogens such as Ebola and Marburg virus, were initially brought to the United States through an agreement with the University of California, Davis, which was managed by the disgraced Manhattan nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance. and spent millions of taxpayer dollars to support China’s “dangerous virus.” Pandemic pathogen collection and research. ”
The research was conducted at the now-closed Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuhan University, and the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Marshall said data on biological specimens purchased from China could contain “forensic clues to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“The federal government is not actively disclosing information related to the COVID-19 pandemic or the dangerous pathogen research it is outsourcing to China,” he wrote.
“I wish you all the best in your efforts to clarify everything [Department of Defense] We can correct these mistakes by funding gain-of-function research. ”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and now former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) initially asked the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General to conduct a comprehensive audit of Chinese pandemic pathogen research grants in January, The Post exclusively reported.
The requirement was approved as part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, and Storch notified lawmakers last month that his office had formally launched an investigation.
After more than four years of denials by himself and other public health officials, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak said in Congressional testimony on Thursday that U.S. taxpayers are paying for the functioning of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. admitted to funding acquisition research. .
Dr. Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, also said at a separate hearing the week before that, despite the US approving more than $500,000 in funding to test new bats, He revealed that he did not know how many viral sequences were stored. There’s coronavirus.
EcoHealth on Tuesday filed one of its reviews of the Wuhan experiment “more than two years late” for conducting research with the SARS and MERS viruses that “may have violated NIH protocols for biosafety.” , had all federal aid revoked. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
It remains unclear whether SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the COVID-19 pandemic began in the fall of 2019, but many scientists, former public health officials , federal agencies have determined that SARS-CoV-2 is the most infectious. Probably an explanation.
