EcoHealth Alliance, the controversial organization at the center of the Covid-19 pandemic, continues to receive taxpayer money to study infectious animal-borne viruses in Asia and Africa.
Data from the government’s USA Spending database shows that since 2017, EHA has received at least eight Department of Defense grants totaling more than $32 million for projects involving experiments on coronaviruses, Ebola and MERS.
EHA, headed by British zoologist Peter Daszak, is a New York-based organization that has sent taxpayer money from the National Institutes of Health to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, which conducts risky gain-of-function research.
In experiments like this, scientists deliberately alter viruses to make them more infectious or more deadly – and the WIV is the lab where Covid is thought to have originated and leaked, causing a global epidemic estimated to be more directly or indirectly People killed more than 22 million people took their lives. People.
Despite EHA’s connection to the WIV and Covid, six of the government grants were initiated after the global spread of the pandemic.
Dr. Peter Daszak (pictured left next to Dr. Anthony Fauci) leads the EcoHealth Alliance
Between 2015 and 2023, at least seven US institutions provided National Institutes of Health grants to laboratories in China that conduct animal testing, totaling $3,306,061
Shi Zhengli – nicknamed the “Bat Lady” or “Bat Woman” for her work on bat coronaviruses – investigated the possibility that Covid could have originated in her lab in 2020, according to colleagues
In addition, documents released this week appear to show that Daszak and several other researchers tried to mislead the Defense Department in 2018 about efforts to conduct risky experiments in Chinese labs with looser safeguards than in American labs.
The experiments would see researchers “construct spike proteins” to infect human cells, which would then be “incorporated into the SARS-Covid backbone.”
However, the proposal was not approved with grant money and the research was not conducted with US taxpayer dollars.
In a statement on Tuesday, EHA called the documents “incomplete” and said the “allegations are false because they are based on a misunderstanding of the changes and comments to the document, as well as misleading contextual citations and a lack of understanding of the federal grant award process.” .” be rewarded.
EXCLUSIVE: Virologist who funded Wuhan experiments admits lab leaks possible for first time – after years of research into origins of Covid
A scientist at the center of the Covid lab leak theory has admitted he cannot rule out the possibility that the virus escaped from a Chinese research facility.
All eight Department of Defense awards were awarded to EHA by the Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DARPA), a division of the Department of Defense responsible for developing new technologies for use by the military.
A pre-pandemic grant ran from October 2017 to October 2023.
It received $6.5 million and a description of the project said its goal was to understand the risk of emergence of bat-borne zoonotic diseases in West Asia.
An August 2019 grant, expected to close in August 2024, provided $5 million to reduce the threat of Rift Valley fever, a viral hemorrhagic fever most common in domestic animals in sub-Saharan Africa, including cattle , buffaloes and sheep, occur. Goats and camels.
The virus can jump from animals to humans through blood, body fluids and bites. Most people experience no symptoms of the virus or may experience a mild illness with fever and dizziness.
Less common and life-threatening symptoms include excessive bleeding, eye disease and brain swelling.
Five grants awarded after the outbreak of the Covid pandemic between June 2020 and December 2022 focused on studying high-risk animal-transmitted pathogens in African and Asian countries that cause fatal febrile and hemorrhagic diseases, such as Ebola virus, Marburg virus and the Nipah virus virus, MERS and coronaviruses as well as bird flu.
They are expected to last until December 2025.
An award running from July 2021 to May 2024 aims to predict the impact of biothreats through data and learning, but does not mention work with viruses or animals.
Dangerous research like that of the EHA raises fears among scientists and politicians that it could cause a new pandemic. Because of these concerns, in September the United States quietly halted a $125 million taxpayer-funded project in which researchers were searching for new viruses.
DEEP VZN – pronounced Deep Vision – was launched in October 2021 with the aim of finding and studying new pathogens in wildlife in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Although the research was intended to prevent human outbreaks and pandemics, critics, including Biden administration officials, feared it could have the opposite effect, expressing fears about the potentially “catastrophic risks” of virus hunting.
The project was scheduled to last until 2026, but DEEP VZN closed in July 2023 without a formal public announcement.
USAID’s DEEP VZN (pronounced Deep Vision) project searched for viruses in wildlife in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
DEEP VZN stands for “Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens – Viral Zoonoses” and was launched in October 2021 by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Less than two years later, USAID officials informed members of the Senate committees responsible for DEEP VZN that the program had been shut down.
The early closure of the project came suddenly and was communicated privately to Senate staff through the office of Atul Gawande, the deputy administrator for global health at USAID.
The news was buried in hundreds of pages of a congressional budget document and discussed in interviews with federal lawmakers and investigators.
At the launch, USAID said the “ambitious new project” aims to work with partner countries and the global community to “build better preparedness for future global health threats.”
The goal was to collect more than 800,000 samples, mostly from wildlife, over five years to identify a subset of “previously unknown” viruses that “pose a significant pandemic threat.”
After the termination, USAID said it would instead focus on improving laboratory capacity, disease surveillance, human resources, biosafety and risk communication.
Source link
Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
