Trump Signs Executive Order to Limit Funding for Controversial Gain-of-Function Research

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday that seeks to limit federal funding for gain-of-function research, which is used to study how pathogens can become more harmful by causing mutations in the lab. The EO was signed by the president in the Oval Office of the White House, with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other top health officials by Trump’s side, who all tried to suggest the covid-19 pandemic originated from a leak at a research facility in China that was conducting gain-of-function research. They falsely claimed the so-called lab leak theory was the consensus view among scientists.