Reschenthaler, Ernst, Marshall, McClain Demand NSF and NIH Terminate Grant Funding for EcoHealth Alliance
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Representative Guy Reschenthaler?(PA-14), Senator Joni K. Ernst (R-IA), Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-KS), and Representative Lisa McClain (MI-10) led letters to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) condemning the agencies’ recent decisions to award grant funding to the EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. (EcoHealth). The New York nonprofit, led by Peter Daszak, has funneled nearly $1.7 million in federal tax dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and repeatedly failed to comply with federal law and reporting requirements for federal grants.
NSF recently awarded a $1 million grant for a project that will include EcoHealth Alliance for Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention. Additionally, NSF plans to award another grant to EcoHealth for $263,801 in January 2023. The letter, signed by 40 members of Congress, requests that NSF terminate its grant relationship with EcoHealth and asks oversight questions regarding how EcoHealth was selected for this project.
NIH announced a five-year grant beginning with an award of $653,392 to conduct more studies on coronaviruses from bats in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. The letter, signed by 30 members of Congress, details EcoHealth Alliance’s history of grant compliance failure and concerning lack of transparency, and requests NIH end their grant relationship with EcoHealth.
“It is a gross abuse of hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to continue to fund EcoHealth Alliance,” said Rep. Reschenthaler. “EcoHealth and its president, Peter Daszak, are complicit in failing to comply with federal law and collaborating with a Chinese Communist Party secret laboratory. I am proud to work with Sen. Ernst, Sen. Marshall, and Rep. McClain on holding the Biden Administration accountable to end this relationship with this negligent organization.”
“Because EcoHealth broke federal laws, withheld evidence, and conducted dangerous research in unsafe conditions, this group should never be trusted to put its hands on taxpayer dollars or bats ever again,” said Sen. Ernst. “Let’s defund EcoHealth and launch a real scientific investigation to find out once and for all what was really happening in Wuhan, China so the same mistakes are never repeated again.”
“NIH and NSF chose risk over responsibility by funding Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance. Instead of enforcing oversight, NIH escorted Peter Daszak and EcoHeath Alliance around it and both of these science agencies walked them straight to the pot of taxpayer gold," said Sen. Marshall. “Until proper risk assessment procedures for U.S. research grants are restored, not a single cent of federal funding should go towards viral, dangerous gain-of-function research.”
“Under no circumstances should the United States send tax dollars to labs run by the Chinese Communist Party,” said Rep. McClain. “EcoHealth Alliance has a long history of funneling money to CCP labs and continuing to fund this organization is a blatant misuse of federal dollars and a slap in the face to every single American. I am joining my colleagues in urging the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation to cut all ties with EcoHealth and ensure our tax dollars are not funding these scandal-ridden labs.”
The letter to NSF can be viewed here.
The letter to NIH can be viewed here.
Background on EcoHealth & WIV:
The WIV is a Chinese Communist Party high-containment laboratory and the likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the State Department, the WIV has conducted classified research on behalf of the Chinese military.
Since 2004, EcoHealth and its president, Peter Daszak, have collaborated with the WIV. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dazsak withheld critical information and pushed false narratives to hide the true origins of the pandemic.
In 2021, the U.S. Agency for International Development acknowledged that EcoHealth provided $1.1 million to the WIV from October 2009 to May 2019. This funding utilized gain-of-function research to create a hybrid, man-made virus by inserting a spiked protein from a wild coronavirus into a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone, which could infect human airways by binding to the ACE2. Additionally, between 2015 and 2019, the WIV received approximately $598,500 from EcoHealth for a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases funded study on the risk of bat coronavirus emergence.
In the 117th Congress, Rep. Reschenthaler and Sen. Ernst introduced bicameral legislation to prohibit federal funding to the EcoHealth Alliance.
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