Health & Lifestyle

Why did it take three YEARS to halt funding to Wuhan? Trump said he’d seen evidence Covid leaked from lab in May 2020 and the FBI thinks a research accident is ‘likely’ – yet YOUR taxpayer dollars were being funneled to the Chinese lab until this WEEK

Questions are being asked about why it has taken three years to pull the plug on US funding to the Chinese laboratory at the center of a Covid lab leak cover-up.

Former President Donald Trump said as early as April 2020 that he had seen evidence the pandemic was borne out of dangerous experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and a slew of damning reports, leaks and indirect evidence since then has led the FBI and at least one other Government agency to support the ‘lab leak theory’ publicly.

Yet US taxpayer money continued to flow through the WIV during the pandemic to identify and study dangerous viruses. It wasn’t until this Monday that the Biden Administration finally announced it was indefinitely suspending the WIV access to US research grants, saying it was necessary to ‘protect the public interest.’ 

Critics have suggested that the White House’s reluctance to scrap all funding and launch a full-throated condemnation of China during the pandemic is because of the US Government’s eerie ties to the Chinese research institute, which has enjoyed potentially millions in US funds over the years.

There is also a sense that the Biden Administration and political establishment have been slow to come around on the idea of a lab leak because of Trump’s early endorsement of the hypothesis. Biden described Trump as ‘nakedly xenophobic’ for claiming the lab was the likely source of the pandemic in 2020.

The Biden Administration finally announced on Monday it was suspending the Wuhan Institute of Virology's (WIV) access to government funding and proposed a longer-term ban after the lab could not provide sufficient documentation on its biosafety protocols and security measures

The Biden Administration finally announced on Monday it was suspending the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s (WIV) access to government funding and proposed a longer-term ban after the lab could not provide sufficient documentation on its biosafety protocols and security measures 

Records show that at least half a million US taxpayer dollars were sent to the WIV since 2014 as US health officials outsourced research too controversial to be carried out at home.

The money was used for multiple research projects that some scientists have said constitute gain of function experiments, which saw bat coronaviruses mixed with other viruses to make them more deadly and infectious when put into mice. 

In 2014, gain of function was banned in the US under the Obama administration due to concerns that the benefits did not outweigh the risks.

The idea of gain of function is to get ahead of natural evolution to understand and develop knowledge, drugs and vaccines for future outbreaks.

But the danger is that experts create a virus that may not have emerged naturally or posed a threat to humans and accidentally unleash it.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the country’s research-funding body, first struck an indirect relationship with the Wuhan lab in 2014.

In June that year, the NIH and US Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded third-party New York nonprofit research group EcoHealth Alliance a grant of $4.3 million, with $3.7 million coming from the NIH.

The $4.3 million grant was awarded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the NIH’s infectious disease arm.

At that time, it was still run by Dr Anthony Fauci. Records show $598,611 went directly to WIV between 2015 and May 2019.

The grant description for EcoHealth’s five-year experiment was titled: ‘UNDERSTANDING THE RISK OF BAT CORONAVIRUS EMERGENCE’.

Its objective was to: ‘Assist public and private nonprofit institutions and individuals to establish, expand and improve biomedical research and research training in infectious diseases and related areas; to conduct developmental research, to produce and test research materials.’

Records show scientists working under the grant mixed the genetic material from a ‘parent’ coronavirus called WIV1 with other viruses.

On two occasions, they submitted summaries of their research that showed that when three altered bat coronaviruses were put in the lungs of genetically engineered mice, they multiplied much more quickly than the original virus they were based on.

The viruses also appeared to be more deadly, with one causing the mice to lose weight significantly. The researchers wrote: ‘These results demonstrate varying pathogenicity of SARSr-CoVs with different spike proteins in humanized mice.’

The terms and conditions of the grant clearly stated that the funding could not be used for gain-of-function experiments. It also required that as soon as the researchers found they had potentially dangerous results, they informed NIH and stopped pending review by the agency.

Both the NIH and EcoHealth said that the results were reported to the agency, and the NIH said that the rules to limit gain-of-function research did not apply.

But EcoHealth Alliance subcontracted the grant to various research facilities across Asia and Africa, with at least $1.4 million received by WIV.

EcoHealth Alliance, run by British zoologist Peter Daszak, funded studies in Wuhan ¿ the Chinese city where the pandemic began ¿ on manipulated coronaviruses. The boss of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, shown left, is known to be close to Dr Anthony Fauci (right)

EcoHealth Alliance, run by British zoologist Peter Daszak, funded studies in Wuhan – the Chinese city where the pandemic began – on manipulated coronaviruses. The boss of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, shown left, is known to be close to Dr Anthony Fauci (right)

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has long been suspected as the source of the COVID pandemic, but the CIA has been unable to confirm the reports. The FBI and Department of Energy have already concluded that the 'lab leak' theory is most likely

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has long been suspected as the source of the COVID pandemic, but the CIA has been unable to confirm the reports. The FBI and Department of Energy have already concluded that the ‘lab leak’ theory is most likely 

Virologist Shi Zheng-li, left, works with her colleague in the P4 lab of Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2017

Virologist Shi Zheng-li, left, works with her colleague in the P4 lab of Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2017

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (pictured) launched a secret research initiative that saw them fuse coronaviruses in a  series of risky experiments

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (pictured) launched a secret research initiative that saw them fuse coronaviruses in a  series of risky experiments

Facing a funding shortfall when certain grants expired, EcoHealth in 2018 submitted an even more ambitious research proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

The plan, titled Project DEFUSE, involved partnering with WIV to engineer bat coronaviruses to be more deadly by inserting genetic features similar to those found in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid.

The research involved gathering bat coronaviruses in China and studying them at the WIV, as well as mixing components of SARS-like viruses from different species to create a novel chimera that was able to directly infect human cells.

The experiments described in grant documents that are publicly available so far used viruses not closely related enough to Covid to cause the pandemic, but key records have still not surfaced.

A lack of oversight, accountability and paper trail, as highlighted by the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services, has meant it is not clear exactly how much money went to the Wuhan lab for that particular project.

The WIV was due to continue receiving funding from the $4.3 million US government grant, but days after the Mail on Sunday revealed in April 2020 that the US government was paying for the lab’s research, Trump cut the funding.

The WIV and its experimenters have not received any US taxpayer funding since September 2019, according to US pressure group White Coat Waste Project.

It told DailyMail.com Biden’s decision to pull the funding was ‘long overdue’ and noted that the Administration’s proposal is only a ten-year ban rather than a permanent suspension.

Dr Fauci is known to be close to Dr Peter Daszak, British zoologist and president of Eco Health Alliance, who once thanked the American Government’s departing chief medical adviser for downplaying theories that Covid may have been created in a lab.

In August 2022, the NIH stopped a sub-award to the WIV that had been part of an earlier grant to EcoHealth Alliance. The NIH informed the House Oversight Committee that Eco Health had refused to give over laboratory notebooks and other records.

The NIH wrote to the committee: ‘NIH has requested on two occasions that EHA provide NIH the laboratory notebooks and original electronic files from the research conducted at WIV. To date, WIV has not provided these records.’

It added: ‘Today, NIH has informed EHA that since WIV is unable to fulfill its duties for the subaward under grant R01AI110964, the WIV subaward is terminated for failure to meet award terms and conditions requiring provision of records to NIH upon request.’

The NIH wrote to EcoHealth to let it know the sub-award had been halted due to ‘material non-compliance with terms and conditions of award’, but said that the research group could renegotiate the involvement of the Wuhan lab.

The NIH restarted the bat coronavirus grant to EcoHealth Alliance in May of this year, which EcoHealth announced on its website in the interests of better transparency moving forwards.

The new award, which was renewed on April 26, does not cover the criticized studies which mixed parts of bat viruses linked to SARS and EcoHealth has to adhere to new accounting rules.

Dr Daszak said the project no longer includes collecting new bat samples or working with live viruses.

He added that the WIV’s role does not go beyond contributing more than 300 genome sequences of SARS-related bat coronaviruses from its collection.

In 2014, the Obama administration banned gain of function research in light of controversial research on H5N1 viruses in 2012.

But in 2017, the NIH lifted the ban on the research, and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released guidance for funding decisions.

Mounting evidence over the years has pointed back to the lab leak theory for Covid.

In November 2019, three researchers at WIV fell sick with a mystery virus, leading to suspicions they could have been the first people to contract Covid. 

It was later reported that the researchers’ symptoms were ‘consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illnesses.’

One of the researchers was Ben Hu, a US taxpayer-funded scientist.

In February 2023, FBI Director Christopher Wray reiterated his agency’s initial findings from 2021 that the Covid pandemic was probably the result of a lab leak in Wuhan. 

The Energy Department also concluded that the Covid-19 virus most likely leaked from a Chinese research lab, having reversed its previous position. 

Read More: World News | Entertainment News | Celeb News

Related posts

Could AI that enables you to ‘chat’ with loved ones from beyond the grave help ease your grief?

BBC Brk News

Expert outraged by ‘belittling’ new research paper that recommends taking a run to beat postpartum depression

BBC Brk News

Secrets of Taylor Swift’s incredible figure revealed as she shows off her toned physique on Bahamas getaway with Travis Kelce

BBC Brk News

Leave a Comment