Wuhan virus lab got more U.S. money than previously reported

The Wuhan lab at the center of speculation about the origins of the coronavirus received four different grants of money from the U.S. government over the past decade, according to new research released Wednesday.

At least two of the grants were never reported in USASpending, the government’s online database that’s supposed to give the public a chance to track where its money goes, according to Sen. Joni Ernst and the folks at Open the Books, a watchdog group.

They said the Wuhan money is part of at least $1.3 billion in funding Uncle Sam provided over five years to research labs and outfits in China and Russia, two adversary nations. That $1.3 billion is the low-end, given how difficult it is to track where federal research money ultimately ends up.

“It is gravely concerning that no one in Washington can actually account for millions sent to institutions in China for pointless projects, but I have the receipts,” said Ms. Ernst, Iowa Republican.

She and Open the Books said they identified $870 million in grants and contracts that went to Russia over the past five years. Another $490 million went to China.

That is 10 times the amount of money the Government Accountability Office found when it went looking for U.S. funding for Chinese research.

And it raises questions of how much more went through those adversary nations that hasn’t been revealed.

“It’s remarkable how quickly the federal government loses track of taxpayer dollars,” said Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of Open the Books. “It’s critical that government creates a paper trail so that the people, press, pundits and politicians can investigate where our tax dollars are being spent and determine whether we are getting any return on our collective investments.”

GAO, Congress’ chief watchdog, has been probing the murkiness of federal spending and said the data is pretty good for what’s known as “prime award” recipients — the universities, companies, labs and nonprofits that get direct funding from federal agencies. Those agencies are required to report that money on USASpending.gov.

But things begin to break down beyond that top line.

The prime recipients often dole out the money to “first-tier subaward” recipients, for which GAO said the data “are limited and may be inaccurate.” And they can then send money to “second-tier” subrecipients, for which GAO says there is “no data available.”

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is an example of how tricky it can be to track spending.

It received nearly $600,000 from the National Institutes of Health via an intermediary, the U.S.-based EcoHealth Alliance. The money, which was used for risky “gain of function” research on bat coronaviruses, wasn’t widely known to the public until 2021, though it was reported on USASpending.

But Ms. Ernst and Open the Books have identified three other U.S. grants that funded Wuhan. They include:

• A $216,000 subaward from NIH through the University of California, Irvine, to research transgenic mice.

• $1.1 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development, as a “sub-agreement” with EcoHealth Alliance, to study viruses. That money was not reported on USASpending, but in a 2021 letter to Pennsylvania Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, USAID said the money was intended to study virus development in animals before spillover to humans. USAID said the money was never authorized for gain of function research.

• An unspecified subaward of money from NIH via Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to do electroshock experiments on mice. Ms. Ernst and Open the Books said that money was not reported on USASpending.

At least one of those had never been publicly reported until now, three years after the start of the pandemic that has slain millions and upended the global economy.

Some experts believe the virus behind the pandemic came from the Wuhan lab. Other experts argue the virus leaped from an animal to humans in the Wuhan area, and say the lab is not responsible.

China has not been cooperative in efforts to trace the lab’s involvement, but the former head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention this week told BBC News not to ignore the lab leak possibility.

“That’s science. Don’t rule out anything,” the virologist said.

Ms. Ernst said EcoHealth, the U.S.-based outfit that siphoned money to Wuhan for virus research, “intentionally” bungled its monitoring and reporting on the lab’s use of taxpayers’ money.

EcoHealth has told federal investigators it complied with federal reporting requirements “99% of the time” and said it’s made corrections to its procedures following an inspector general’s report.

NIH this year removed the Wuhan virus lab from its list of entities approved to do animal research with U.S. public health taxpayer money.

A good chunk of the money sent to Russia went to subsidize the Russian Space Agency.

President Biden last year ordered the U.S. to wind down funding for Russian scientific research in the wake of that country’s attack on Ukraine.

Among other spending that went to Russian or Chinese outfits, Ms. Ernst and Open the Books reported $96,875 for gender equality through an exhibition of New Yorker magazine cartoons; $1.45 million for pandemic virus tracking in Russia; and $770,466 to a state-run Russian lab to debilitate cats then put them on a treadmill to study spinal cord injuries.

Ms. Ernst said she also found $1.6 million from the National School Lunch Program that went to Chinese outfits during the pandemic. She said that was money intended for American farmers, but which ended up in the hands of Chinese agriculture exporters.

The senator said those are just the projects they were able to identify and don’t include money lurking deep below the surface, hidden in subawards and contracts.

“Washington needs to stop losing track of your money!” Ms. Ernst said.

She slapped the Treasury Department with her “Squeal Award,” a monthly designation she gives to suspect government spending. The award’s name comes from a famous campaign ad Ms. Ernst cut during her 2014 Senate bid, in which she recounted castrating pigs growing up on an Iowa farm and vowed to take her scalpel to Washington to make the big spenders squeal.

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.