R&I – FS
A leading critic of the National Institutes of Health contends the federal agency “put at risk” U.S. public health and national security by funding a bat coronavirus research project by EcoHealth Alliance.
Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, told the Washington Examiner that a new letter in which the NIH conceded that the group run by Peter Daszak violated its rules when conducting bat coronavirus research is a “bombshell” admission because it “corrects the untruthful assertions” by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci and his boss, NIH Director Francis Collins, both of whom claim the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China.
Gain-of-function research is defined by the Department of Health and Human Services as research “that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause disease” to “enable assessment of the pandemic potential of emerging infectious agents.” It warns these studies “may entail biosafety and biosecurity risks.”
Daszak maintained a long working relationship with Wuhan lab “bat lady” Shi Zhengli, sending her lab at least $600,000 in NIH funding. Daszak was also part of the World Health Organization-China team that dismissed the lab leak hypothesis as “extremely unlikely” earlier this year.
Obey