The virus research group EcoHealth Alliance was engaged in dangerous experimental virus work in China that was funded by the federal government, according to a newly released report by a special House panel on the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic was made public on Wednesday. Peter Daszak, president of New York-based EcoHealth, faced sharp exchanges at times as he testified before the subcommittee.
“EcoHealth used taxpayer dollars to facilitate gain-of-function research on coronaviruses in Wuhan at the [Wuhan Institute of Virology], contrary to previous public statements, including those by [former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] Dr. Anthony Fauci,” the report says.
Mr. Daszak faced hostile questioning from Republicans and Democrats over his role in federally funded virus work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is suspected of playing a role in sparking the deadly pandemic. He denied misleading the government or that his organization conducted risky virus research.
EcoHealth Alliance continues to receive federal funds, which Mr. Daszak estimated during the testimony to be $16 million annually. He insisted all EcoHealth’s work in China was aimed at halting pandemics.
Mr. Daszak emerged early in the pandemic as an activist denying that the COVID virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and was leaked to the general public. EcoHealth had extensive ties to the laboratory for years before the pandemic outbreak and was involved in extensive risky research on potentially deadly virus strains.
The EcoHealth president attracted more controversy when he served on a World Health Organization team that investigated the virus in China in the pandemic’s earliest days and concluded it was improbable that the virus came from the Wuhan laboratory.
The WHO later backtracked from that assessment and said a laboratory leak in Wuhan was a possible source of the pandemic.
‘Bad actors’
Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup, Ohio Republican, said EcoHealth Alliance and Mr. Daszak are “bad actors” and should be banned from receiving federal funds.
“Dr. Daszak and his organization conducted dangerous gain-of-function research at the WIV, willfully violated the terms of a multimillion-dollar NIH grant, and placed U.S. national security at risk,” Mr. Wenstrup said. “This blatant contempt for the American people is reprehensible. It is imperative to establish higher standards of oversight at the NIH.”
Mr. Wenstrup said incompetency at NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Dr. Fauci headed until December 2022, enabled EcoHealth’s troubling actions.
The subcommittee report said EcoHealth “used taxpayer dollars to facilitate gain of function research on coronaviruses in Wuhan at the WIV, contrary to previous public statements, including those by Dr. Anthony Fauci.”
Mr. Daszak testified that he worked with Wuhan virologist Shi Zhengli, dubbed the “bat woman of China” for her role in researching bat coronaviruses. He said the Wuhan Institute of Virology may have conducted bat virus research that was not made public, but he insisted the COVID virus did not leak from the laboratory.
The virus, SARS-CoV-2, is a bat coronavirus that FBI and Energy Department intelligence units believe emerged from the Wuhan laboratory. Four other American intelligence agencies said they could not determine the origin of the virus after President Biden ordered a review of what was known.
Experts generally suspect the virus either leaked from the Wuhan lab or jumped from a bat to an animal host and then to humans. Wuhan’s animal “wet market” has also been a target of researchers seeking COVID’s origins.
China has failed to provide information on the virus’ origin, including early COVID samples. The communist government instead has accused the United States of causing the pandemic.
Mr. Daszak said “substantial evidence” shows that COVID emerged naturally from an animal host and insisted there was “zero evidence it emerged from a lab.”
Chinese and international scientists searching for the origin of the pandemic have not identified an animal that may have been a host for the bat virus, which first infected humans in Wuhan in late 2019.
Asked during testimony whether the pandemic could have emerged from a laboratory leak, Mr. Daszak modified his response: “It’s possible but extremely unlikely.”
The Wuhan institute blocked international virologists from accessing a virus database held by the laboratory after the pandemic began, he testified.
Mr. Daszak also provided conflicting testimony to the subcommittee, said Rep. H. Morgan Griffith, Virginia Republican.
Mr. Griffith questioned Mr. Daszak about first stating in grant reports to the U.S. government that coronavirus spillovers from bats to humans in China in the past had affected thousands or 1 million people. Later, he said coronavirus spillovers to humans in China were rare. The lawmaker said the contradicting statements indicate Mr. Daszak was “untruthful.”
Mr. Daszak denied EcoHealth took part in gain-of-function experiments in China. He said scientists did not technically define work at the Wuhan lab as gain-of-function research.
Gain-of-function research is modifying a biological agent to have new or enhanced activity. Mr. Daszak said the term as he defines it relates only to an enhanced ability of a virus to infect humans.
Failure to report
The subcommittee report examined a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant to EcoHealth Alliance on “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”
The interim report that found EcoHealth engaged in taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research also said EcoHealth violated the terms of its federal grants by “failing to report a potentially dangerous experiment conducted by the WIV.”
The EcoHealth director was questioned about his role in organizing a letter from 26 scientists that appeared in the medical journal The Lancet dismissing reports that the virus emerged from the Wuhan laboratory as a conspiracy theory.
Mr. Daszak testified that he did not know the institute was engaged in secret military work for the People’s Liberation Army.
In January 2021, the State Department made public a fact sheet that said scientists at the Wuhan laboratory were conducting secret Chinese military research.
“The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017,” the fact sheet said.
Rep. Raul Ruiz of California, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, said the investigation revealed that EcoHealth misled the federal government regarding its virus research in China.
“It is important for you and your organization to be held accountable, including for your lack of transparency,” Mr. Ruiz said. “We need to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly.”
Mr. Ruiz said Mr. Daszak’s answers to subcommittee questions were “unsatisfactory” and his testimony “concerning.”
The subcommittee report concluded that the federal government process for research grants has “serious and systemic weaknesses.”
“The weaknesses identified by the committees not only place United States taxpayer dollars at risk of waste, fraud and abuse but also risk the national security of the United States,” the report said. “These weaknesses can only be remedied through both executive and legislative action.”
The report accused the Department of Health and Human Services and EcoHealth of obstructing the subcommittee’s investigation.
Several subcommittee members questioned Mr. Daszak about emails he sent regarding his 2018 grant request to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to defuse the threat of bat-borne coronaviruses.
The emails quoted Mr. Daszak as telling Ms. Shi, the Wuhan lab researcher, that he would try to downplay the proposed virus work in China.
Mr. Daszak said the emails referred to a draft proposal and that DARPA, when queried, had no objection to EcoHealth doing the work in China.
Anthony Bellotti, president of the watchdog group White Coat Waste Project, said the hearing confirmed many of the group’s initial findings and documents that he said show EcoHealth was engaged in reckless gain-of-function experiments in Wuhan that “probably infected Patient Zero and prompted the pandemic.”
“We’re glad that Peter Daszak finally had to answer for lying, wasting taxpayers’ money, breaking the law, abusing animals, and threatening public health,” Mr. Bellotti said in a statement.
“It’s high time EcoHealth and Daszak were held accountable because our investigations have documented how they’ve gotten off scot-free so far and raked in $60 million of new taxpayers’ cash just since the pandemic began.”
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.