The P4 laboratory building at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research in Wuhan, China.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded a laboratory in Wuhan, China, to genetically modify bat coronaviruses, but the grant was not reviewed by an oversight committee set up to review research that could enhance high-risk pathogens.
According to the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF), experts said the NIH grant was used to fund scientists to conduct gain-of-function research, a risky area of research. This is a risky area of research that makes SARS-like viruses more infectious, experts said. The U.S. federal government suspended funding for gain-of-function research in 2014 because of widespread concern in the scientific community that such research could potentially infect humans with a super-strong virus.
After the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) established the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Control and Oversight (P3CO) Review Committee, in late 2017, the federal agency reinstated funding for gain-of-function research.
The review committee was tasked with critically assessing whether grants involving enhanced research on dangerous pathogens, such as coronaviruses, were worth the risk and whether appropriate safety measures were in place.
However, an NIH spokesperson told DCNF that the NIH affiliate allocated funds to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance to study the Chinese bat coronavirus without submitting the project plan to P3CO for review, meaning that the study was conducted without This means that the study received federal funding without independent review by the HHS board.
“It’s a systemic problem,” Richard H. Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, told DCNF, referring to a gap in the review framework.
Ebright said the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the NIH, funded the EcoHealth Alliance study, and that the refusal of the NIAID director’s office and the NIH to label the project and send it for review was a systematic obstruction, indeed a systematic veto, of the HHS-created P3CO committee.
Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies before the Senate on March 18, 2021, regarding the federal response to the New Guinea virus outbreak.
Dr. Anthony Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Dr. Francis S. Collins is the head of the NIH (National Institutes of Health).
A spokeswoman for NIH said that its affiliates did not flag the EcoHealth Alliance’s funding for independent review by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) review committee.
After careful review of the grant, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) determined that the research in the grant was not for gain-of-function research because it did not involve enhancing the pathogenicity or infectivity of the virus,” the spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “
“We don’t submit research protocols that don’t meet the definition of everything we would otherwise need to submit,” the spokesperson said.
How to bypass federal oversight
The Wuhan Institute of Virus Research is at the center of widespread speculation that the new coronavirus, a Chinese communist virus, could accidentally leak from a laboratory and infect humans. “The EcoHealth Alliance’s funding for bat coronavirus research in China includes $600,000 for the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research.
If the EcoHealth Alliance grant is reviewed by the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Control and Oversight (P3CO), a panel from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will independently evaluate the grant and, if necessary, recommend additional biological controls to prevent potential laboratory leaks – or even recommend that the grant be denied.
The Wuhan Institute of Virus Research is a 4P laboratory with the highest biosecurity rating, but U.S. Embassy officials issued two diplomatic cables warning of inadequate security at the lab after visiting it in 2018. One of the cables warned that research done by the Wuhan Institute of Virus on bat coronaviruses could create the risk of a new pandemic similar to SARS, the Washington Post reported.
The World Health Organization report on the origin of the new coronavirus describes the Wuhan Institute as using “recombinant virus” in tests involving bat coronaviruses, which Ebright said fits the description of a gain-of-function study.
The government suspended funding for gain-of-function research at the Centers for Disease Control in 2014 after laboratory workers were accidentally exposed to Bacillus anthracis, according to The New York Times. This followed widespread protests from the scientific community in 2011 when it was revealed that laboratories in Wisconsin and the Netherlands had intentionally modified the H5N1 bird flu virus to make it more efficiently transmissible among ferrets.
Federally funded gain-of-function research resumed in 2017 following the implementation of new oversight procedures. The review framework divided oversight responsibilities into two groups: the funding agency (NIAID) and the “Potential Pandemic Pathogen Control and Oversight (P3CO)” review committee, an interdisciplinary group convened by HHS.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told DCNF that for grants involving gain-of-function research, the committee is responsible for recommending whether additional risk-aversion measures need to be included. But the committee has no knowledge of any of the grants unless the funding agency flags the project and requests a committee review of the grant.
The P3CO review framework does not require a second review by the HHS Review Committee after reviewing the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) decision that the EcoHealth Alliance grant does not involve gain-of-function research.
A spokesperson for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said the statement that NIAID was required to notify the HHS review committee of its decision was “misleading and inaccurate.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed that HHS’s P3CO Review Committee only reviews research grants that are flagged by funding agencies such as NIAID as requiring additional evaluation. When asked if the review committee was aware of the EcoHealth Alliance grant, the spokesperson did not respond.
“The EcoHealth Alliance has a history of manipulating bat coronavirus genes. Peter Daszak, president of the organization, discussed this in a podcast interview filmed in Singapore just weeks before the first report of a new coronavirus case in Wuhan in December 2019.
Researchers perform experiments in the P4 lab in Wuhan, China, Feb. 23, 2017.
“You can easily manipulate (coronaviruses) in the lab,” Daszak said. “The burst protein has driven a lot of research on coronaviruses, causing zoonotic risks. You can get sequences, you can build proteins, and we’re working with Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina to insert the backbone of another virus and do some work in the lab.”
Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, told DCNF that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was wrong to assume that the EcoHealth Alliance grant did not involve improving the transmission of bat coronaviruses in China.
Ebright said the program’s FY 2019 abstract refers to “in vitro and in vivo infection experiments” with coronaviruses that “explicitly require a risk-benefit assessment under the HHS P3CO framework.”
Other scientists say the NIH-funded Ecological Health Consortium’s work in China involves gain-of-function studies of bat coronaviruses.
Drs. Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson wrote in June, “The central logic of this grant is to test the pandemic potential of SARS-associated bat coronaviruses by creating bat coronaviruses with pandemic potential through genetic engineering or passaging, or both. The pandemic potential of coronaviruses cannot be overstated.”
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) terminated funding for the EcoHealth Alliance in April 2020, and Michael Lauer, NIH associate director for external research, told the organization in a letter that NIH “does not believe that (the “The EcoHealth Alliance’s current program outcomes are consistent with the goals and priorities of the NIH.”
Fauci told a June hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that funding for the EcoHealth Alliance was canceled “because NIH was told to do so.” “I don’t know why, but we were told to cancel it,” Fauci said.
Fauci told U.S. political news site Politico after the hearing that the administration of former President Donald Trump (R-Texas), ordered NIH to cancel the grant.
HHS admits flawed government oversight of gain-of-function research
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) building in Washington, DC.
The only known member of the HHS P3CO Review Committee is its chairman, Chris Hassell, a senior scientific adviser in the office of the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. He disclosed his participation in a conversation at the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity in January 2020.
In the meeting, Hassell said the current definition of a potential pandemic agent is “very narrow …… which has led to only a handful of influenza-related proposals” being submitted to the board for review.
Hassell said, “To be frank but not necessarily appropriate, I think the definition is too narrow.” The government is likely to fund gain-of-function research that his committee has not yet reviewed. Hassell said, “I think the issue could be revisited and there may be some definitional issues.”
In 2014, 21 research projects were called off when the federal government suspended funding for gain-of-function research. But the National Institutes of Health (NIH) gave the green light to 10 of those projects, according to the New York Times.
When funding resumed in 2017, only two projects were approved under the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Control and Oversight (P3CO) framework. Both projects involve influenza viruses, according to NIH.
An NIH spokesperson said they do not comment on or discuss applications for projects that were not funded.
It is not clear who else serves on the HHS P3CO) review committee. Hassell said in January 2020 that the committee is made up of federal employees, saying it could be detrimental to their work if their names were released.
Hassell said, “While it’s good to have someone suggest that the names of these people be released, it would be detrimental if it frightened anyone who would serve on that committee.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Hassell was not available for comment.
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