President Donald Trump took action on Monday to stop federal money going toward gain-of-function research, a controversial practice linked to the COVID origins debate, in China and other countries.
The move came in the form of an executive order, which Trump showed off in the Oval Office of the White House, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya, and others in attendance.
“It’s a big deal,” Trump said. “It could have been that we wouldn’t have had the problem we had if we had this done earlier,” he continued, alluding to the COVID pandemic, which began during Trump’s first term.
🚨 BREAKING: @POTUS just signed an executive order protecting Americans from dangerous gain-of-function research.
The order:
— Ends any present and all future Federal funding of dangerous gain-of-function…
