President Donald Trump is reportedly preparing an executive order to halt funding of risky viral gain-of-function research—lab experimentation designed to genetically manipulate biological agents to make them more transmissible and pathogenic.
Trump is right to do so. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed more than an estimated 15 million globally, the rationale for such a moratorium is stronger than ever. It is highly likely that the deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a prominent Chinese lab and the epicenter of gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.
Current funding restrictions, evident in grant funding for research in China, are clearly inadequate. To address this, Trump should quickly adopt a variant of President Barack Obama’s 2014 funding moratorium on gain-of-function research.
But that’s not…
