Lawmakers are recommending a criminal investigation into the president of a nonprofit organization that for years funneled U.S. taxpayer dollars to a lab in Wuhan, China that was conducting research on bat coronaviruses.
The EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) and its president Dr. Peter Daszak should be cut off from receiving future funding through the Department of Health and Human Services and should be criminally investigated for withholding information about U.S.-funded research that may have played a role in starting the Covid pandemic, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic urged in a report and corresponding documents released Wednesday morning.
The Covid subcommittee suggests in its report that the Justice Department should investigate Daszak for potentially violating federal laws against making false statements to the government. The report delves into gain-of-function bat coronavirus research overseen by EHA at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the organization’s lack of transparency surrounding the research.
EcoHealth submitted the five-year transparency report on the Wuhan lab research two years late, claiming that it was locked out of the NIH reporting system, though the subcommittee found no evidence to substantiate that justification.
The report was released ahead of Daszak’s public testimony on Wednesday before the Covid subcommittee to address the issues noted in the report and Daszak’s close relationships with top NIH officials.
Emails disclosed earlier this month showed Daszak communicated with top National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases advisor Dr. David Morens using a personal email address, potentially in violation of federal records laws. In the emails, sent in the spring of 2020, Daszak and Morens discuss the likelihood of the lab-leak Covid-origin theory and share talking points to push back on criticism of U.S.-funded research at the Wuhan lab.
Covid subcommittee Chairman Dr. Brad Wenstrup (R., Ohio) revealed during his opening statement on Wednesday that Morens complied with a recent subpoena and turned over 30,000 pages of emails from his private gmail account.
“Dr. Daszak has been less than cooperative with the select subcommittee and he’s been slow to produce requested documents. And has used semantics with the definition of gain-of-function research, even in his previous testimony. Dr. Daszak maintains that EcoHealth never conducted gain-of-function research by shifting definitions of this area of research put forth by regulatory agencies,” Wenstrup said of Daszak.
In an exchange with Representative Nicole Malliotakis (R., N.Y.), Daszak denied that EcoHealth funded gain-of-function bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab, insisting that the research did not focus on modifying viruses to make them more infectious to humans.
EcoHealth experiments at the lab created enhanced coronaviruses and tested them on mice, a form of experimentation that falls under the broadly accepted definition of gain-of-function, top NIH official Dr. Lawrence Tabak testified to the subcommittee earlier this year. Gain-of-function research typically involves scientists experimenting on viruses to make them more potent.
During his Wednesday testimony, Daszak dismissed the lab-leak theory, downplaying assessments by the FBI and Department of Energy concluding the pandemic most likely came from the Wuhan lab. He doubled down on his belief coronavirus originated from animal spillover. However, Daszak did admit the lab leak is not a conspiracy theory, despite his key role in a February 2020 letter to Lancet by scientists seeking to discredit the lab-leak hypothesis.
National Review reported earlier this week that EcoHealth was just awarded a fresh grant from U.S. Agency for International Development and cited a spokesperson for the nonprofit who insisted that they are no longer actively partnering with any research entities in China. Asked about National Review’s reporting during the hearing, Daszak affirmed the spokesperson’s claim.
Daszak did confirm, however, that the Wuhan lab continues to hold bat-coronavirus-research samples and that EcoHealth possesses the resulting data. He further insisted he had no knowledge of WIV’s apparent ties to the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army, even though EcoHealth partnered with the Wuhan lab on research projects for over a decade.
Years earlier, EcoHealth applied for a research grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for a project called “diffuse” involving WIV. A draft of the research proposal include comments from Daszak where he appeared to downplay the Chinese research component. The proposal seemed to indicate research in China would be conducted at lower biosafety levels.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers repeatedly criticized Daszak and EcoHealth’s issues with transparency and heavily scrutinized the DARPA application.
Daszak testified it was nothing out of the ordinary to emphasize the U.S. research and denied the plan to oversee research in China at lower safety levels. The DARPA proposal fell through and EcoHealth did not receive funding for it.
Representative Rich McCormick (R., Ga.) pressed Daszak on how he got the NIH to reinstate its grant to EcoHealth even after the pandemic, given its ties to the Wuhan lab, arguing that EcoHealth withheld key information to secure the grant funding. McCormick cited several emails between Dazak and Morens, arguing that Morens was instrumental in getting the funding approved.
“This was me asking his advice as a friend and colleague,” Daszak said of the emails. Morens was one of many NIH officials Daszak consulted to help get his grant reinstated.
“When I’m talking to him by email about personal and security issues, and political attacks…I talked to him about the attacks on my house,” Daszak said.
Morens and former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci are scheduled to testify publicly later this year.