NIH stops funding Wuhan lab linked to COVID leak controversy.

NIH Removes Wuhan Lab from Eligible Facilities for Animal Experiments

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), suspected as a source of COVID-19, has been removed from the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) list of foreign facilities eligible to conduct animal experiments on taxpayer dollars. The WIV was still on the list as recently as April 23, but was absent from the page last updated on May 17. The current list consists of 27 other laboratories from China.

NIH Funding to Wuhan Criticized

The WIV has been a partner of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance for years, conducting bat coronavirus research with U.S. funding totaling more than $3 million between 2014 and 2019. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a vocal critic of the NIH funding to Wuhan, cheered the news as a “victory for taxpayers.” She said that the Wuhan facility should never have received U.S. support for its dangerous experiments on bat coronaviruses.

Questionable Lab Safety Practices

The Wuhan lab has a history of questionable lab safety practices as it engaged in projects to enhance a SARS-like coronavirus that could make mice sicker. A 2017 video showed the WIV researchers keeping bats in a cage inside the lab and collecting bat samples outdoors with minimal protection measures.

NIH’s Renewed Grant to EcoHealth Draws Criticism

The NIH suspended funding to EcoHealth’s bat virus project after the pandemic broke out in China, and later terminated the Wuhan subgrant over grant rule compliance questions. It renewed the grant earlier this month with some modifications to the program’s scope, a move that drew alarms from critics such as Ernst who wants to see permanent defunding of the New York organization. With the renewed grant, EcoHealth now receives 17 active U.S. grants valued at more than $50 million collectively.

Watchdog Group Thrilled with NIH’s Decision

Justin Goodman of White Coat Waste Project, a watchdog group that has worked with Sen. Ernst on the issue, said he is “thrilled” to see the NIH’s “long overdue decision” to disqualify “white coats in Wuhan from future taxpayer funding.” He added that taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund a foreign lab run by an adversarial nation that wasted money, tortured animals, and engineered superviruses in dangerous gain-of-function experiments that violated the law and likely caused COVID.

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