House Energy and Commerce Committee Republican Leader Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health Republican Leader Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Republican Leader Morgan Griffith (R-VA) today sent the following letter to Boston University President Robert Brown, requesting information related to reports that researchers at his university are conducting potentially risky gain-of-function research with coronaviruses:
KEY EXCERPT: “BU has stated that the work was approved by the institutional biosafety committee (IBC) of BU’s NEIDL, and by the Boston Public Health Commission. However, the research work was not cleared with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). BU has stated that the research did not have to be cleared with NIAID because the experiments were carried out with funds from BU, and that there was no gain of function with this research.
“Nevertheless, Dr. Emily Erbelding, director of NIAID’s division of microbiology and infectious diseases, said the BU team’s original grant applications did not specify that the scientists wanted to do this precise work. Nor did the group make clear that it was doing experiments that might involve enhancing a pathogen of pandemic potential in the progress reports it provided to NIAID. Asked if the research team should have informed NIAID of its intention to do the work, Dr. Erbelding said: ‘We wish that they would have, yes.’ Recent news reports indicate that the NIH is examining whether experiments in the study should have triggered a federal review.”
The members requested the following information by November 8, 2022:
- All proposals and progress reports cited in the pre-print.
- All proposals and progress reports sent to the NIAID related to the pre-print study.
- For each of the NIH grants referenced in the pre-print, please provide a copy of the grant terms for each grant.
- Any correspondence related to whether the study should be referred to P3CO review.
- A listing of all funding streams to the BU NEIDL related to the pre-print study, including support for facilities, equipment, and personnel.
- A copy of the submission on the research sent to the IBC and the Boston Public Health Commission
- According to STAT News: “[Dr. Ronald] Corley [Director of NEIDL] said that BU safety protocols require that if researchers produce a pathogen that is more virulent than the Wuhan strains, they must immediately report it to the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC). [Dr. Mohan] Saeed’s study protocol further stipulated that if such an event occurred, he would immediately stop the work and destroy the viruses, Corley noted.” Please provide a copy of the BU safety protocols including the reporting requirement to the IBC and a copy of the study protocol on research stoppage.
Original source can be found here.
