The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) recently praised the Biden Administration for halting US funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). In a press release from July 26, FGI referenced a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) memo and said they hope the suspension will lead to ultimately shutting down funding from the US government to the Wuhan lab.
“Since the start of the pandemic, multiple federal investigations and research studies have tried to determine whether the Wuhan lab was responsible. With this memo, there is now undeniable evidence that the WIV was conducting coronavirus research while clearly disregarding the necessary biosafety requirements," FGI spokesperson Peter McGinnis said in the press release. "FGI applauds the Biden administration’s decision to suspend and hopefully bar the Wuhan lab from any future federal funding. But now the question we must ask is, why did it take so long?”
The Biden administration has suspended the Wuhan Institute of Virology's (WIV) access to U.S. federal funds due to worries about inadequate information regarding their practices, according to Fox News. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced this in a letter on Monday and expressed the possibility of future debarment. The article said that a previous review found that the laboratory did not comply sufficiently with federal regulations and did not provide American authorities with sufficient details on safety and security precautions taken at the Institute.
Fox News reported that between 2014 and 2019, the Wuhan lab received $1.4 million in grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
In January 2023, the HHS Office of Inspector General released an audit report criticizing EcoHealth, a New York-based non-profit, for how they handled a 2014 NIH grant, which included a sub-award of $600,000 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for research of hybrid bat coronaviruses and the possibility of these viruses to infect humans. In response to COVID-19 allegations, the NIH terminated the grant in April 2020. However, the press release said that in May 2023, EcoHealth received a new NIH grant with the condition that no research could be conducted in China or involve animals. HHS has since reevaluated its decision for renewal, and the NIH said, “WIV research likely violated protocols of the NIH regarding biosafety."
“This action aims to ensure that WIV does not receive another dollar of federal funding. The move was undertaken due to WIV’s failure to provide documentation on WIV’s research requested by NIH related to concerns that WIV violated NIH’s biosafety protocols,” an HHS spokesperson said, according to CNN. HHS’s deputy assistant secretary said it is likely that the laboratory “not only previously violated, but is currently violating, and will continue to violate, protocols of the NIH on biosafety. Therefore, I have determined that the immediate suspension of WIV is necessary to mitigate any potential public health risk.”
Researchers at the Wuhan Institute have continually denied any relation between the lab and Covid-19, according to CNN. However, China has restricted further exploration of possible virus hypotheses, denying that the virus came from its country and requesting that the US explore its own laboratories. Despite the World Health Organization's repeated calls for further investigations, including laboratory audits and studies, Beijing has defended its honesty and said that the US is "politicizing" the issue.
