According to previously released emails, representatives from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) frequently cautioned the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance that their research breached a “funding pause” on gain-of-function (GOF) research imposed by the American government.
NIH official Carine Normil got an email from EcoHealth Alliance chief of staff Alexa Chmura in May 2016 saying, “We received a warning that one of the publications [redacted] listed from the past year is non-compliant.” Chmura was referring to EcoHealth’s financing of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s GOF study on the bat-based virus, which is currently quite contentious.
According (read below) to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), GOF research aims to render viruses more harmful or contagious in order to “enable assessment of the pandemic potential of emerging infectious agents.”
According to reports, Chmura’s email was a “separate reply” to Normil’s letter from NIAID employee Erik Stemmy, in which he mentioned EcoHealth Alliance’s research project and wrote, “They have proposed work for the next year of the award that may be subject to the gain-of-function funding pause.”
Additionally, the emails reveal that the FBI had started looking into the GOF study connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “The disclosure of an FBI inquiry shows that Fauci/others involved in this scandal were being dishonest in dismissing the seriousness of questions about their cover-up of their funding of dangerous gain-of-function research in China,” Judicial Watch stated in a tweet publicising their receipt of the emails.
The NIH supported GOF research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology from at least 2014 to 2019, according to nine hundred pages of data obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2021, despite numerous warnings from NIH officials.
Additional cautions on the conformity of the GOF study are shown in the emails that Judicial Watch just released. Jenny Greer and Stemmy, who work for the National Institutes of Health, informed Chmura in a separate letter from May 2016 that “[This work] may include Gain of Function (GoF) research that is subject to the U.S. Government funding pause… issued on October 17, 2014.”
Stemmy also sent Grant Operations an email on June 15 informing them that EcoHealth’s research might be viewed as GOF. Stemmy added, “[This work] may include Gain of Function (GoF) research that is subject to the U.S. Government funding pause … issued on October 17, 2014.”
The Daily Caller also pointed out that Peter Daszak, the founder of EcoHealth Alliance, had neglected to submit his report to the NIH regarding an EcoHealth grant on time, according to the emails. “This is the second communication from NIAID requesting that you file the progress report for the above-referenced grant [5R01AI110964] that was due no later than April 15, 2016.”
“Please submit the delinquent report by May 12, 2016 … [P]lease be advised that continued late submission of your non-competing grant progress report and any subsequently requested documentation will result in a reduction of time and/or funds for this grant.”
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, NIAID director Anthony Fauci received harsh criticism for telling U.S. Sen. Rand Paul that the NIH and NIAID had nothing to do with “gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Read the document below:
Emails-Show-NIH-Officials-Repeatedly-Warned-EcoHealth-About-Gain-Of-Function-Research-Violations
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