Andrew Kerr, DCNF
- Two subordinates of Dr. Anthony Fauci raised concerns in May 2016 that taxpayer dollars may be funding gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses at a Wuhan lab, but dropped the issue after nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance downplayed the concerns, documents show.
- The National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases staffers reversed course after requesting EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak submitted a “determination” to the agency that downplayed the risks of his proposed experiments, the records show.
- “The NIH, incredibly, accepted EcoHealth’s belief that this work would not be considered gain of function, and accepted EcoHealth’s rationale for this belief,” Rutgers University professor Richard Ebright told the DCNF.
- Daszak also notified NIAID staffers in a June 27, 2016, email that he was reliant on Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher Shi Zhengli, who has known ties with the Chinese military, to notify him if their lab-created viruses exhibited enhanced replication.
- The records were obtained by the White Coat Waste Project as the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and provided exclusively to the DCNF.
Two subordinates of Dr. Anthony Fauci raised concerns in May 2016 that a taxpayer-funded grant may include gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses at a Wuhan lab, but dropped the issue after nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance downplayed the concerns, documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.
National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Disease staffers Jenny Greer and Erik Stemmy told EcoHealth in a May 28, 2016, letter that a proposed grant “may include” gain of function research, according to documents obtained through a White Coat Waste Project information request. The letter requested EcoHealth provide its own “determination” as to whether its proposed experiments in Wuhan included gain of function research.
EcoHealth President Peter Daszak submitted his “determination” to the NIAID in a June 8, 2016 letter that downplayed potential risks associated with his group’s proposed research in Wuhan, which involved the creation of lab-made chimeric coronavirus, and denied it involved gain of function.
The NIAID then gave Daszak the opportunity to submit an amended version of his letter on June 27, 2016, after discovering a factual error in the initial filing, emails show. The agency then used Daszak’s revised letter, which kept the original June 8 filing date, as the basis of its own determination on July 7 that EcoHealth’s research did not involve gain of function.
Rutgers University Professor Richard Ebright told the DCNF that the NIAID’s May 28, 2016, letter to EcoHealth proves that Fauci was “untruthful in his testimony to Congress” that NIH staff concluded up and down the line that the EcoHealth grant did not include gain of function research.
“The NIH, incredibly, accepted EcoHealth’s belief that this work would not be considered gain of function, and accepted EcoHealth’s rationale for this belief, and accepted EcoHealth’s policy-noncompliant proposal for a [10 times] allowance for increased viral growth before stopping work and reporting results,” Ebright said.
“The NIH, in effect, delegated to EcoHealth Alliance the authority to determine whether its research was, or was not gain of function research subject to the funding pause, the authority to set criteria for the determination, and the authority to over-ride federal policies implemented by the White House in 2014-2017 and by HHS in 2017-present,” Ebright added.
Daszak’s letter to the NIAID on June 8, 2016, argued that EcoHealth’s proposed experiments in Wuhan were not gain of function in part because the WIV1 bat coronavirus they planned to use as the basis of their lab-made viruses “has never been demonstrated to infect humans or cause human disease.”
But Daszak’s collaborator at UNC Chapel Hill, Ralph Baric, helped publish a study three months prior in March 2016 that found WIV1 had the ability to infect humans. Baric’s study found that the WIV1 virus posed an “ongoing threat” to humans because it “readily replicated efficiently in human airway cultures and in vivo, suggesting capability of direct transmission to humans.”
Daszak also said in his June 8, 2016, letter to the NIAID that he would cease experimentation and notify the agency immediately if EcoHealth’s lab-created viruses in Wuhan were enhanced by over one log, or ten times, compared to the natural strain used to construct it.
Daszak later informed the NIAID staffers in a June 28, 2016, email that he was reliant on Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher Shi Zhengli, who has known ties with the Chinese military, to notify him if their lab-created viruses exhibited enhanced replication.
“You are correct to identify a mistake in our letter,” Daszak said in his email to an NIAID staffer. “UNC has no oversight of the chimera work, all of which will be conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
“We will clarify tonight with Prof. Zhengli Shi exactly who will be notified if we see enhanced replication, and then amend and re-send the letter to you so it is clear. I will also confirm with Zhengli the make-up of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Institutional Biosafety Committee,” Daszak added. “However, my understanding is that I will be notified straight away, as [Principal Investigator], and that I can then notify you at NIAID.”
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