The National Institutes of Health is pulling funding for the Wuhan virus lab, but three Republican senators are trying to make sure EcoHealth Alliance, which was the conduit for taxpayer funds to reach Wuhan, doesn’t skate on its past links to the lab.
Led by Sen. Roger Marshall, the trio said the U.S. Department of Agriculture must answer for the money it sent EcoHealth Alliance over the years and explain whether any of that funding helped advance risky research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The senators also raised questions about a potential conflict of interest for USDA employees who serve as review editors for EcoHealth’s journal.
“We must shine light on every way EcoHealth has exploited the U.S. government to fund its dangerous coronavirus research and hold all of the Washington Bureaucrats accountable for manipulating precious government grant funds for their personal enrichment and worldwide travel expeditions,” said Mr. Marshall, Kansas Republican.
He was joined in the letter by Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Marco Rubio of Florida.
The Washington Times has reached out to the Agriculture Department.
DOCUMENT: Letter to USDA secretary
The Wuhan lab has been at the center of questions about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Some experts say the virus jumped from an animal. Others say it leaked from the lab, which was doing research with bat coronaviruses.
American taxpayers partially funded the lab, in particular through grants from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Agency for International Development that went through EcoHealth to Wuhan.
EcoHealth, run by Peter Daszak, denies that the money went to so-called gain-of-function research, in which viruses’ lethality is boosted to study how dangers might emerge. But a government watchdog has concluded that the research EcoHealth funded, with taxpayer dollars, did produce “enhanced growth” and should have been flagged for U.S. authorities.
NIH has cut the lab off from any future funding, but EcoHealth continues to collect taxpayers’ cash.
The GOP senators, in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, said his department also funded EcoHealth in the past, working on disease research.
The senators asked the department to produce records showing what type of research was funded so they could evaluate any links to the coronavirus.
“There needs to be top to bottom accountability. USDA Secretary Vilsack’s answers to our letter will be crucial in preventing Peter Daszak and the gain-of-function mafia from getting more sweetheart government deals funded by the American taxpayer,” Mr. Marshall said.
The senators also questioned why two employees at USDA’s National Wildlife Research Center are part of the editorial board for EcoHealth’s academic journal.
“Their participation on EcoHealth’s editorial board may be in violation of executive branch employee code of ethics by either giving the appearance that USDA supports EcoHealth, a private organization, or that USDA employees receive gratuities from EcoHealth, a U.S. federal grant recipient,” the senators said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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