>>13361892 pb
US Grant To Wuhan Lab To Enhance Bat-Based Coronaviruses Was Never Scrutinized By HHS Review Board, NIH Says
The National Institutes of Health has “systematically thwarted” government oversight of dangerous pathogen research, Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard H. Ebright told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The P3CO Review Framework was created in 2017 after a three-year pause on government funding of research that intentionally makes pathogens more deadly or transmissible.
An NIH grant that involved the modification of bat-based coronaviruses and the transfer of $600,000 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the pandemic bypassed P3CO review because the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, led by Anthony Fauci, didn’t flag the project for review.
An oversight board created to scrutinize research that would enhance highly dangerous pathogens did not review a National Institutes of Health grant that funded a lab in Wuhan, China, to genetically modify bat-based coronaviruses.
Experts say the NIH grant describes scientists conducting gain-of-function research, a risky area of study that, in this case, made SARS-like viruses even more contagious. Federal funding for gain-of-function research was temporarily suspended in 2014 due to widespread scientific concerns it risked leaking supercharged viruses into the human population.
Federal funding for gain-of-function research was resumed in late 2017 after the Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight (P3CO) Framework was formed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The review board is tasked with critically evaluating whether grants that involve enhancing dangerous pathogens, such as coronaviruses, are worth the risks and that proper safeguards are in place.
But the NIH subagency that awarded the grant to the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance to study Chinese bat coronaviruses opted against forwarding it to the P3CO committee, an NIH spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation, meaning the research received federal funding without an independent review by the HHS board.
“This is a systemic problem,” Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard H. Ebright told the DCNF, referring to the loophole in the review framework.
Ebright said the offices of the director for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — the subagency that funded EcoHealth — and the NIH have “systematically thwarted–indeed systematically nullified–the HHS P3CO Framework by declining to flag and forward proposals for review.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci leads the NIAID and Dr. Francis S. Collins heads the NIH.
An NIH spokesperson said its subagency did not flag the EcoHealth grant for independent review by the HHS review committee.
“After careful review of the grant, NIAID determined research in the grant was not gain-of-function research because it did not involve the enhancement of the pathogenicity or transmissibility of the viruses studied,” the spokesperson told the DCNF.
MORE
https://dailycaller.com/2021/04/04/nih-gain-of-function-anthony-fauci-review-board-wuhan-lab/