Dr. Anthony Fauci has steered another lucrative grant to study bat viruses to the same company suspected of conducting gain-of-function research at the mysterious Chinese laboratory where some experts believe COVID-19 was hatched.
EcoHealth Alliance last month began a multi-year study of “viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine development,” according to a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Fauci runs. The $3.3 million study, which involves bats and coronaviruses, is set to run through August 31, 2027.
“It should be noted that EcoHealth Alliance was awarded a new NIH grant ten days ago, providing an additional $3.3 M over five years for a project including high-risk virus discovery research in bats in southeast Asia,” tweeted Rutgers University Professor of Chemical Biology Richard Ebright, who has been a frequent critic of Fauci and believes the virus was likely man-made.
This must be a joke. Please tell me this is a joke. @nih just gave @EcoHealthNYC and Peter Daszak a NEW grant for bat coronavirus research?
Including supplying “viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine development”?
Nope. Not a joke.
The joke, apparently, is on us. pic.twitter.com/b4p2fORn0u
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) October 2, 2022
EcoHealth Alliance, run by Fauci pal Peter Daszak, has been the focus of suspicion that the virus that has killed more than 6 million people worldwide may have been created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology through gain of function research, work that purposely makes viruses more transmissible and deadly in order to develop antidotes.
EcoHealth received a $3.7 million grant from NIAID in 2014 for a project titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” and sent more than $600,000 of the funds to the Wuhan lab. Daszak worked closely with Shi Zhengli, known as the Wuhan lab “bat lady.” Daszak was also part of the World Health Organization-China team that dismissed the lab leak hypothesis as “extremely unlikely.”
Fauci has insisted that no gain of function research, which was illegal at the time, took place at the Wuhan lab using U.S. taxpayer funds. But Lawrence Tabak, the NIH’s principal deputy director, said in a letter last year that EcoHealth admitted the NIH grant was used to infect humanized mice with modified bat coronaviruses that made them sicker.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has repeatedly accused Fauci of funding dangerous research and then changing the NIH definition of the term to avoid culpability while funding the creation of unnatural and deadly viruses.
“Your repeated denials have worn thin and the majority of Americans, frankly, don’t believe you,” Paul told Fauci last November in a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill. “Your persistent denials are not just a stain on your reputation but are a clear and present danger to the country and to the world.”
“You’ve changed the definition on your website to cover your ass,” Paul said.
Fauci told Paul and other lawmakers on the Senate Health Committee that Paul was “egregiously incorrect in what he says.”
“Senator, with all due respect, I disagree with so many of the things you’ve said,” Fauci responded. “First of all, gain of function is a very nebulous term.”
Fauci has said he will retire in December. Republicans are expected to recapture the House and potentially the Senate, and will likely launch new probes into what, if any, role Fauci and Daszak played in funding the creation of the deadly COVID virus.
The new grant comes despite legislation introduced last week by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) that would bar federal funding to EcoHealth Alliance.
“Giving taxpayer money to EcoHealth to study pandemic prevention is like paying a suspected arsonist to conduct fire safety inspections,” Ernst told The Daily Caller. “NIH got it right when it canceled the funding for the experiments EcoHealth Alliance was conducting with China’s state-run Wuhan Institute. In addition to violating multiple federal laws, EcoHealth has still not turned over documents about these dangerous studies that NIH has requested on multiple occasions that could offer vital clues to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
