NIH Says US Group Didn't Meet Terms of Grant for Virus Research in China
Summary from the AllSides News Team
A letter from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) official to a Republican lawmaker says an American nonprofit failed to quickly report findings from studies on coronaviruses conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China. The letter details a WIV experiment funded by a U.S. grant that studied whether "naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable" of transferring to humans. That description appears to match the definition of "gain-of-function research," though that specific phrase is not used. The research was done in collaboration with the American nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance and was funded by an NIH grant. In May, Anthony Fauci told Congress that the U.S. has never " funded gain-of-function research" at WIV. The NIH letter ends by saying the coronaviruses studied under the grant "could not have been the source of SARS-CoV-2 and the Covid-19 pandemic."
Right-rated outlets covered the letter prominently on Wednesday, and left- and center-outlets offered little to no coverage of it. Many painted Fauci as a liar and highlighted calls for him to be fired or prosecuted; some also framed the research as dangerous and a potential reason for the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Thursday evening, the New York Times was one of the only non-right rated sources to cover the letter. The Times report doesn't mention how the letter appears to contradict Fauci, and focuses on NIH officials who denounced the claim that the research caused the pandemic.
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New NIH Letter About EcoHealth Reporting Failure Raises New Questions About Gain-Of-Function Funding
Documents released yesterday by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) appear to contradict previous claims by the EcoHealth Alliance regarding the subject of experiments on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China, raising further questions over whether U.S. government funding contributed to so-called “gain-of-function” research.
In a letter to Representative James Comer, Ranking Member on the Oversight and Reform Committee, the NIH provided additional information and documents regarding NIH’s much-scrutinized grant to EcoHealth Alliance.
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NIH admits US funded gain-of-function in Wuhan — despite Fauci’s denials
It’s another Fauci flub.
The National Institutes of Health has stunningly admitted to funding gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at China’s Wuhan lab — despite Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly insisting to Congress that no such thing happened.
In a letter to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) on Wednesday, a top NIH official blamed EcoHealth Alliance — the New York City-based nonprofit that has funneled US funds to the Wuhan lab — for not being transparent about the work it was doing.
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Bat Research Group Failed to Submit Virus Studies Promptly, N.I.H. Says
The National Institutes of Health said on Wednesday that a nonprofit group under fire from some Congressional Republicans for its research collaborations in China had failed to promptly report findings from studies on how well bat coronaviruses grow in mice.
In a letter to Representative James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, the N.I.H. said that the group, EcoHealth Alliance, had five days to submit all unpublished data from work conducted under a multiyear grant it was given in 2014 for the research. The organization’s grant was canceled in 2020 under President...
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