{"id":353715,"date":"2023-05-10T11:20:47","date_gmt":"2023-05-10T15:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/?p=353715"},"modified":"2023-05-10T21:55:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T01:55:03","slug":"absolutely-reckless-nih-allows-ecohealth-alliance-to-resume-coronavirus-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/2023\/05\/absolutely-reckless-nih-allows-ecohealth-alliance-to-resume-coronavirus-research\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Absolutely Reckless\u2019: NIH Allows EcoHealth Alliance to Resume Coronavirus Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Megan Redshaw, Childrens Health Defense<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\" The National Institutes of Health this week reinstated a controversial federal grant to EcoHealth Alliance to study the risk of bat coronavirus spillover, sparking criticism from lawmakers and bioweapons experts.<\/p>\n

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) this week reinstated a controversial federal grant to\u00a0EcoHealth Alliance<\/a>\u00a0to study the risk of bat coronavirus spillover.<\/p>\n

TRUTH LIVES on at\u00a0https:\/\/sgtreport.tv\/<\/a><\/p>\n

EcoHealth is a New York-based nonprofit whose\u00a0stated mission<\/a>\u00a0is to develop \u201cscience-based solutions to prevent pandemics and promote conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2014,\u00a0EcoHealth received $3.7 million<\/a>\u00a0from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to study the risk of bat coronavirus emergence and the potential for outbreaks in human populations \u2014 research that included\u00a0genetically manipulating<\/a>\u00a0coronaviruses<\/a>\u00a0to make them more infectious to humans.<\/p>\n

At the time,\u00a0Dr. Anthony Fauci<\/a>\u00a0was the director of the NIAID, which operates under the NIH.<\/p>\n

Nearly $600,000 of the $3.7 million went to EcoHealth\u2019s collaborator, the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.<\/p>\n

However, in April 2020, under the Trump administration, the NIH terminated EcoHealth\u2019s grant over concerns the organization had violated the grant terms, using U.S. taxpayer money to fund\u00a0gain-of-function research<\/a>\u00a0at the Wuhan lab.<\/p>\n

EcoHealth on Monday announced that the\u00a0NIH reinstated the grant<\/a>, but with new terms, and that EcoHealth will collaborate with the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School to study zoonotic coronaviruses \u201cwith the aim of being transparent about the study\u2019s goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Daszak, Ph.D. \u2014 who secretly collaborated with\u00a0Ralph Baric, Ph.D.<\/a>, and\u00a0Fauci<\/a>\u00a0to steer the media and scientific community away from questions about whether\u00a0COVID-19 could have originated in a lab<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 is EcoHealth\u2019s executive director and principal investigator on the grant.<\/p>\n

Rep. Morgan Griffith<\/a>\u00a0(R-Va.), who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee that found multiple serious violations by EcoHealth of the contractual terms and conditions of the 2014 NIH grant, said the decision to reinstate the grant was \u201cabsolutely reckless<\/a>,\u201d given the organization\u2019s \u201cnegligence and breach of their contract with the NIH on the coronavirus research done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).\u201d<\/p>\n

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., bioweapons expert and professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told\u00a0The Defender<\/a>\u00a0he wasn\u2019t surprised to see the grant reinstated.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople involved in this, like EcoHealth Alliance, Fauci, the Biden administration, et cetera, know they have crossed the Rubicon and there is no turning back. And they don\u2019t intend to turn back unless and until we stop them. It\u2019s as simple as that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Boyle, who authored the Biological Weapons Convention known as the\u00a0Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989<\/a>\u00a0that was approved unanimously by both houses of the U.S. Congress and signed to law by President George Bush Sr., also added:<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, all this gain-of-function work is offensive biological warfare weapons work in violation of the convention and my biological weapons anti-terrorism act, the penalty for which is life imprisonment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January, the\u00a0Office of Inspector General<\/a>\u00a0in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)\u00a0released a report<\/a>\u00a0outlining missed deadlines, confusing protocols and misspent funds in EcoHealth Alliance\u2019s grant management, particularly as it related to the Wuhan lab.<\/p>\n

In response,\u00a0HHS set new terms<\/a>\u00a0for the four-year, now-$2.9 million NIAID grant, under which EcoHealth will receive $576,290 this year.<\/p>\n

Under the new terms, EcoHealth is barred from conducting any research in China or collecting any new samples from vertebrates and must implement additional oversight of its finances and accounting practices.<\/p>\n

The conditions also prevent EcoHealth from doing any work \u201cinvolving enhanced potential pandemic pathogens,\u201d although the organization can continue to work with \u201chighly pathogenic agents\u201d or \u201cinfectious agent[s] or toxin[s]\u201d that may warrant a biocontainment safety level (BSL) of 3 or higher. The Wuhan lab was a\u00a0BSL-4 lab<\/a>.<\/p>\n

EcoHealth is the recipient of\u00a017 active U.S. government grants<\/a>\u00a0totaling more than $50 million, The Epoch Times reported.<\/p>\n

Publications like\u00a0Nature<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Science<\/a>\u00a0celebrated the reinstatement of the grant. Nature said the research was \u201cessential for preventing the next pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Science wrote that the Trump administration called for the cancellation of the grant, \u201camid unsupported allegations that a lab leak at WIV started the\u00a0COVID-19<\/a>\u00a0pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read More @ ChildrensHealthDefense.org<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Megan Redshaw, Childrens Health Defense: The National Institutes of Health this week reinstated a controversial federal grant to EcoHealth Alliance to study the risk of bat coronavirus spillover, sparking criticism from lawmakers and bioweapons experts. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) this week reinstated a controversial federal grant to\u00a0EcoHealth Alliance\u00a0to study the risk of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[153897,154016,153937,153951,153896,153899],"tags":[154512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353715"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":353717,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353715\/revisions\/353717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}