The House of Representatives passed several bills Monday, including the Biosecure Act, which prohibits federally funded medical providers from using certain foreign biotech companies linked to China, such as WuXi AppTec, which is affiliated with China’s People’s Liberation Army. Lawmakers are concerned that such companies could collect sensitive genetic data from Americans and potentially use it for bioweapons research.
Just The News reports that among the catalysts for action is concerns over Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s testimony during a March budget hearing. Vilsack faced sharp questioning from Virginia GOP Representative Ben Cline over the USDA’s continued involvement with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), despite the U.S. having debarred the CAS’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for high-risk viral research. Cline specifically inquired about a $1 million project involving the U.S., U.K., and China on bird flu evolution research, which some have criticized as risky and potentially dangerous.
Vilsack, however, pushed back, stating it was not a “collaboration per se,” and emphasized that the U.S. data was “walled off” from its Chinese partners. He claimed that the research involved “separate research” by each country. But when pressed by Cline to terminate the collaboration, Vilsack responded heatedly, saying, “there is nothing to terminate,” and accused the congressman of undermining USDA scientists and professionals.
The project, formally titled “US-UK China Collab: Predictive Phylogenetics For Evolutionary and Transmission Dynamics of Newly Emerging Avian Influenza Viruses,” involves investigating the evolution and potential mammalian transmission of genetically modified bird flu viruses. Documents obtained by the White Coat Waste Project (WCW), an animal-research watchdog group, show that USDA scientists were engaged in gain-of-function experiments—controversial research aimed at increasing the transmissibility or pathogenicity of viruses.
According to WCW, the collaboration used maximum-pain animal experiments in both the U.S. and China to determine whether genetically modified avian influenza could jump from birds to mammals. The project involved experiments on ducks, geese, quail, and other species, raising concerns about the potential for creating pathogens capable of infecting humans.
The records, totaling nearly 200 pages, contradict Vilsack’s assertion that there was no collaboration. The documents clearly refer to the USDA-CCP partnership as a “collaboration,” and detail how U.S. researchers would conduct site visits to the U.K. and China to monitor the research. The USDA’s Agricultural Research Service webpage even confirms that the project involved “viral evolution and transmission dynamics” in animals to predict how bird flu might evolve.
WCW Senior Vice President Justin Goodman called on lawmakers to cut off funding to unaccountable Chinese animal labs, stating, “Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for animal experiments with foreign adversaries that supercharge viruses and can cause pandemics or create bioweapons.” He urged Congress to take action, particularly as legislators consider bills to reduce U.S. reliance on Chinese funding and influence.
In addition to the scrutiny surrounding this collaboration, a 2023 report from Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology flagged the risks of “serial passaging” research—like that involved in the bird flu project—which can lead to gain-of-function genome alterations and increase the likelihood of a virus jumping from animals to humans. This adds to the growing chorus of lawmakers and researchers warning of the dangers of collaborating with Chinese research institutes.
