The U.S. Department of Agriculture was prepared to dish out a grant to the nonprofit behind risky coronavirus research in Wuhan, China, right before the federal government suspended funding for the organization.
The USDA intended to give EcoHealth Alliance a new $2.5 million research grant in May 2024, just before the Department of Health and Human Services initiated debarment proceedings against the nonprofit, indefinitely suspending the group from receiving taxpayer funds, according to emails reviewed by National Review.
In April 2024, the USDA informed EcoHealth that they had been approved for a $2.5 million grant to fund a project titled, “Revealing the Determinants of Virus Diversity and Cross-Species Transmission on Wildlife Farms,” the emails show.
The USDA recommended that EcoHealth receive the funds from the Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases Program, a multi-agency initiative that the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture administers alongside several public health agencies.
USDA retracted the recommendation on May 7, a week before EcoHealth’s suspension was made official, and a couple weeks later informed EcoHealth that the grant had been canceled due to its suspension.
“It’s totally batty that even this year, the USDA and other government agencies were still recklessly raining taxpayers’ cash on EcoHealth Alliance, the disgraced non-profit we exposed for funneling Fauci’s funding to the Wuhan animal lab for gain-of-function experiments on humanized mice that likely caused COVID,” said White Coat Waste Project president Anthony Bellotti.
“Following WCW’s years of investigations, grassroots pressure, and lobbying, EHA finally had its federal funding suspended in May, but this condemned contractor needs to be completely cut off from receiving another red cent of taxpayers’ money. The prevent another animal lab-caused pandemic, the solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness!”
EcoHealth released the emails earlier this year and they were flagged by the White Coat Waste Project, a public health watchdog that has heavily scrutinized EcoHealth’s infectious disease research projects.
“This study would have helped us understand why wildlife farms and wet markets are hotspots for viral evolution and emergence. Further understanding the viral dynamics of the wildlife farming industry is a key step toward preventing future pandemics—an urgent directive with utmost importance not only for the American people but for global health,” an EcoHealth Alliance spokesperson said in a statement to NR.
“As a result, USDA’s retraction of this recommendation is a particularly sad loss for public health, as the wildlife farms and wet markets of Southeast Asia are where SARS originated (EcoHealth played a key role in that discovery), and are widely considered by the scientific community to be where COVID-19 originated from, as well.”
EcoHealth’s disclosure came in response to scrutiny from the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, a GOP-led congressional panel that spent two years investigating the origins of Covid-19 and the government’s response to it.
EcoHealth’s suspension from receiving taxpayer funds was largely a result of sustained scrutiny from the Covid subcommittee over its lack of transparency surrounding risky coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The organization is contesting the suspension and has disputed the subcommittee’s findings about the research at the Wuhan lab.
“Funding the mad scientists at EcoHealth to conduct more cross-species virus experiments is like paying an arsonist to play with fire,” said Senator Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), a leading proponent of ending taxpayer funded research in China and other adversarial nations.
“We should have learned our lesson years ago when COVID ended, but better late than never. I’m putting an end to these batty studies and refocusing federal agencies on preventing threats—like the spread of avian flu – instead of creating new pathogens of pandemic potential.”
The subcommittee concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic most likely originated from a lab in a report marking the culmination of its work. Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance feature heavily in the report because of the Wuhan lab research and EcoHealth’s failure to submit a progress report on the Wuhan research in a timely manner. The subcommittee also accuses EcoHealth of misleading the NIH as to the location of lab samples and failing to disclose the dangerous nature of the experiments.
As for Daszak, the subcommittee accused him of obstructing the Covid-19 probe and of making false statements to congress. Daszak also appears to have gotten internal NIH information from Dr. David Morens, a top advisor at the NIAID who appears to have assisted Daszak with handling NIH oversight.
Daszak strenuously defended EcoHealth’s infectious disease research and dismissed the lab leak theory at an intense public hearing where Republicans and Democrats took turns grilling him over EcoHealth’s conduct.
Like USDA, other government agencies have paused funding to EcoHealth with the debarment proceedings ongoing.