US Grant To Wuhan Lab To Enhance Bat-Based Coronaviruses Was Never Scrutinized

• The National Institutes of Health has “systematically thwarted” government oversight of dangerous pathogen research, Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard H. Ebright told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
• The P3CO Review Framework was created in 2017 after a three-year pause on government funding of research that intentionally makes pathogens more deadly or transmissible.
• An NIH grant that involved the modification of bat-based coronaviruses and the transfer of $600,000 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the pandemic bypassed P3CO review because the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, led by Anthony Fauci, didn’t flag the project for review.

An oversight board created to scrutinize research that would enhance highly dangerous pathogens did not review a National Institutes of Health grant that funded a lab in Wuhan, China, to genetically modify bat-based coronaviruses.

Experts say the NIH grant describes scientists conducting gain-of-function research, a risky area of study that, in this case, made SARS-like viruses even more contagious. Federal funding for gain-of-function research was temporarily suspended in 2014 due to widespread scientific concerns it risked leaking supercharged viruses into the human population.

Federal funding for gain-of-function research was resumed in late 2017 after the Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight (P3CO) Framework was formed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The review board is tasked with critically evaluating whether grants that involve enhancing dangerous pathogens, such as coronaviruses, are worth the risks and that proper safeguards are in place.

But the NIH subagency that awarded the grant to the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance to study Chinese bat coronaviruses opted against forwarding it to the P3CO committee, an NIH spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation, meaning the research received federal funding without an independent review by the HHS board.

“This is a systemic problem,” Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard H. Ebright told the DCNF, referring to the loophole in the review framework.

Ebright said the offices of the director for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — the subagency that funded EcoHealth — and the NIH have “systematically thwarted–indeed systematically nullified–the HHS P3CO Framework by declining to flag and forward proposals for review.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci leads the NIAID and Dr. Francis S. Collins heads the NIH.

An NIH spokesperson said its subagency did not flag the EcoHealth grant for independent review by the HHS review committee.

“After careful review of the grant, NIAID determined research in the grant was not gain-of-function research because it did not involve the enhancement of the pathogenicity or transmissibility of the viruses studied,” the spokesperson told the DCNF.

“We would not submit research proposals that did not meet the definition, because otherwise we would need to submit everything,” the spokesperson said.

How Federal Oversight Of Gain-Of-Function Research Is Bypassed

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is at the center of widespread speculation that COVID-19 could have accidentally leaked from a lab into the human population. EcoHealth’s grant to study bat-based coronaviruses in China included the transfer of $600,000 to the WIV.

Had EcoHealth’s grant been subjected to P3CO review, an HHS panel would have independently evaluated the grant and, if necessary, recommended additional biocontainment measures to prevent potential lab leaks — or even recommended that the grant be denied entirely.

The WIV is a biosafety level 4 laboratory, the highest level biocontainment certification, but U.S. Embassy officials issued two diplomatic cables warning about inadequate safety at the lab after a visit in 2018. One of the cables warned that the lab’s work on bat-based coronaviruses represented the risk of a new SARS-like pandemic, according to The Washington Post.

An annex to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 origin report released Tuesday describes the WIV’s work using “recombinant viruses” in tests involving bat coronaviruses, which Ebright said are descriptions of gain-of-function research.

The U.S. government paused funding of gain-of-function research in 2014 after lab workers were accidentally exposed to anthrax by the Centers for Disease Control, according to The New York Times. The incident came on the heels of widespread scientific outcry in 2011 when it was revealed that laboratories in Wisconsin and the Netherlands were intentionally modifying the H5N1 bird flu virus so it could more effectively jump between ferrets.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a White House press briefing, conducted by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, at…