[D66] NIH faalde als toezichthouder vleesmuizenonderzoek Wuhan Institute of Virology (Wuhan Coronavirus 2019-nCoV #961)

[Dr. Marc-Alexander Fluks]

Bron:   Yahoo News
Datum:  27 januari 2023
Auteur: Alexander Nazaryan, Senior White House Correspondent
URL:    
https://www.yahoo.com/news/extremely-disconcerting-nih-didnt-track-us-funds-going-to-chinese-virus-research-watchdog-finds-004808475.html


'Extremely disconcerting': NIH didn't track U.S. funds going to
Chinese virus research, watchdog finds
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The National Institutes of Health failed to provide adequate oversight 
of an American organization that funded controversial research at the 
Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, according to a new government 
report that is sure to raise new questions about the origins of the 
COVID-19 pandemic.
   https://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region5/52100025.pdf

The report is evidence of 'major failures in past NIH oversight of 
high-risk research on enhanced potential pandemic pathogens,' Rutgers 
molecular biologist Richard Ebright told Yahoo News in an email.

Issued by the inspector general of the federal Department of Health and 
Human Services, the new report says nothing about the origins of the 
coronavirus. For the most part, it concerns research that took place 
well before the first cases of what came to be known as SARS-CoV-2 were 
discovered in China in late 2019.

But it does note that the American organization in question, the 
EcoHealth Alliance, should have been more rigorously scrutinized by 
federal officials regarding assurances that its partner lab in Wuhan was 
not using U.S. funds to conduct gain-of-function research, which boosts 
viruses to study how they might evolve in nature.

'The entire picture starts to look extremely disconcerting,' 
mathematical biologist Alex Washburne told Yahoo News. He said that a 
project on coronaviruses originating in bats, for which the EcoHealth 
Alliance had given a grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, 'was 
clearly gain-of-function research.'

Republicans seized on the findings, with Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky - a 
skeptic of virtually every aspect of the official coronavirus narrative 
- charging that the NIH 'failed to conduct adequate oversight.'

China hawks will also be emboldened, accusing President Biden of not 
being forceful enough with the East Asian superpower.

But it is the NIH that is bound to face the most intense scrutiny. In a 
Twitter message, House Republicans promised that 'oversight & 
accountability' are coming to the federal biomedical establishment, 
which has been celebrated by some but demonized by others.

The new report is likely to feature prominently in hearings they plan to 
hold.

Politics aside, Wednesday's report raises important questions about how 
federal funds are monitored when they flow to foreign governments and 
organizations. Though the context is different, similar questions have 
been asked about the billions of dollars in U.S. military and civilian 
support to Ukraine.

'It's a damning indictment of N.I.H.,' Georgetown University public 
health law expert Lawrence Gostin told the New York Times.

The new report examines a series of grants - $8 million total, awarded 
during both the Obama and Trump administrations - to EcoHealth Alliance, 
a New York-based nonprofit that subsequently sent a total of $598,611 to 
the Wuhan virology lab between 2015 and 2019.

The HHS inspector general, Christi Grimm, found that the 'NIH did not 
effectively monitor or take timely action to address EcoHealth's 
compliance with some requirements' to report research being conducted in 
Wuhan with U.S. funds.

'Deficiencies in complying with those procedures limited NIH and 
EcoHealth's ability to effectively monitor Federal grant awards and 
subawards to understand the nature of the research conducted, identify 
potential problem areas, and take corrective action,' Grimm concluded.

The NIH 'raised concerns' about some of the research EcoHealth was 
funding in China but ultimately did not put a halt to any of the work, 
Grimm wrote in her 64-page report. Crucially, EcoHealth failed to 
produce a progress report about its subgrants in the summer of 2019, 
just months before the advent of the coronavirus.

Despite these concerns, EcoHealth continues to work with the federal 
government; the organization was recently the recipient of $3 million 
from the Department of Defense to study viruses in the Philippines.

In a statement, EcoHealth said it 'welcomes' the inspector general's 
'oversight and collaborated fully and transparently with this audit.' 
The organization also provided point-by-point responses to the inspector 
general's findings that defended its work in China.

Since the first months of the pandemic, EcoHealth Alliance has been at 
the center of both legitimate and conspiratorial inquiries into how, and 
where, the coronavirus originated. Although it was originally thought 
that the virus originated at a wildlife market, no explanation has been 
sufficiently convincing to allow for anything approaching scientific 
consensus.

One attempted explanation is the so-called lab leak theory, which claims 
that the virus escaped from a laboratory - with the Wuhan Institute of 
Virology being the most likely candidate - into the general population. 
The hypothesis was initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory but has 
since been acknowledged as plausible by many experts.

Evidence, however, remains circumstantial, and most scientists subscribe 
to a model of pathogenesis involving an animal-to-person 'spillover.' 
Ebola and HIV took the same route to becoming infectious diseases in the 
human population.

Wednesday's report could invigorate investigators who continue to 
believe that China is hiding crucial evidence, including about a 
potential accident.

When the pandemic began, EcoHealth president Peter Daszak argued that 
criticizing the zoonotic spillover hypothesis - that is, the notion that 
the coronavirus came from an animal, possibly one sold at a wildlife 
market - would only stoke xenophobia.

Daszak compelled members of the scientific community to sign a letter, 
published in February 2020 in the Lancet - one of the world's most 
esteemed medical journals - criticizing the suggestion that a laboratory 
accident (a not-uncommon occurrence in either China or the West) could 
have been involved.

'We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting 
that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,' the letter said. 
'Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice 
that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this 
virus.'

But after the extent of EcoHealth Alliance's work in China became known 
in 2021, the Lancet had to publish an addendum acknowledging Daszak's 
potential conflict of interest in defending China.

The new report comes as House Republicans prepare to probe several 
aspects of the nation's pandemic response, including how the virus 
originated. Among the lawmakers named to the committee is far-right Rep. 
Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has suggested that the 
coronavirus was the result of a bioweapons experiment. She has accused 
Dr. Anthony Fauci of complicity in those experiments - of which no 
evidence exists - and called for his firing as the nation's top 
infectious disease expert.

Fauci, who retired at the end of last year, has defended working with 
Chinese partners. But he has also conceded that much about how the virus 
came to be remains unknown.

'I have a completely open mind,' he said in November.

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