The Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General was tasked with investigating how much federal funding was awarded to Chinese research labs that could have led to the enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential. The report, released last week, found that the department was unable to determine the full scope of funds provided to Chinese research laboratories due to limitations in its systems for tracking contracts and grants.
The report did identify some funding that fell within the scope of the congressional inquiry, but it was unable to determine the extent to which Department of Defense grants, contracts, subgrants, subcontracts, or any other type of agreement or collaboration was provided to Chinese research labs. The report also noted that the department did not track funding in sufficient detail for the inspector general to determine the full scope of funds provided to Chinese research labs or other foreign countries for research related to pathogens.
The provision in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that required the department to produce the report was the effort of Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI) in the wake of the federal government funding possibly dangerous research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The WIV is at the heart of the debate over the origins of COVID-19, with proponents of the so-called lab leak theory suggesting the virus could have originated from an accident at the WIV.
The Army identified seven grants from the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs appropriations valued at $15.6 million that fell into this category and another five awards valued at $9.9 million to Chinese entities unrelated to enhancing pathogens. Army officials said all of the pathogen research is for defensive purposes so they can understand the threats that the U.S. could face. The OIG did not find information to contradict that.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency also identified 13 projects that total $46.7 million that were awarded to EcoHealth Alliance from 2014 through 2023 for pathogen-related biosurveillance studies. The agency reported none of that funding was allocated to China or its affiliates. EcoHealth, a preeminent virus research nonprofit organization, has come under significant scrutiny since the outset of the coronavirus pandemic due to its research on bat coronaviruses conducted at the WIV, funded by the National Institutes of Health starting in 2014.
EcoHealth collected over 15,000 bat coronavirus samples that had been entirely untouched and left at the WIV once the NIH shut down the grant.
Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) told Truth Voices that the CCP’s lack of transparency is one thing, but the DoD’s failure to cooperate and provide details about the United States’s role in deadly gain-of-function research is unacceptable. This is just one of many reasons the public doesn’t trust the federal government to uncover the origins of COVID-19. Every obstacle we face only means we are getting closer to exposing the truth. We will keep fighting for transparency and accountability for this virus that killed over a million Americans.
