China
Wuhan Institute of Virology authorized to receive U.S. taxpayer funding: NIH
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirmed Tuesday that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is authorized to receive U.S. taxpayer funding for animal research through January 2024, The Daily Caller reported.
The WIV is under fire for allegedly causing the COVID-19 pandemic through a suspected accidental lab leak.
The WIV has already received $600,000 in U.S. taxpayer dollars between 2014 and 2019 for research purposes.
EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization, received a $3.7 million grant from the NIH in 2014 to research bat-based coronaviruses in China, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The grant was terminated by the NIH in April because of EcoHealth Alliance’s relationship with the WIV.
In a letter, the NIH said EcoHealth Alliance’s work in China did not align with “program goals and agency priorities.”
In July, the NIH told EcoHealth Alliance they would restore the grant only if EcoHealth Alliance would allow them to arrange an independent team to investigate the WIV to determine if the COVID-19 virus was present in the lab prior to the first known cases in December 2019, as suspected by the U.S. State Department.
The president of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, told NPR that the NIH’s conditions were “preposterous.”
“I’m not trained as a private detective,” Daszak said. “It’s not really my job to do that.”
Fox News “The Next Revolution” host Steve Hilton revealed evidence last month that linked EcoHealth Alliance to the WIV.
Hilton reported that the president of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, sub-contracted an EcoHealth Alliance project to the WIV.
The WIV then began to genetically engineer new viruses from the feces of bats and infected human cells with the virus.
“The genetic changes they made in the lab, unlocked a highly specific doorway into the human body. The virus that causes COVID-19 uses that same exact doorway,” Hilton said.
Daszak was the only U.S. member in the World Health Organization delegation who investigated the origins of COVID-19 in China. The WHO delegation has yet to release a report on its findings.
Daszak told the White House it should accept the delegation’s conclusion and said it’s highly unlikely the virus could have leaked from the Wuhan lab.
Follow Annaliese Levy on Twitter @AnnalieseLevy
Reportedly President Joe Biden is making deals with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help improve anti-drug trafficking measures. China is one of the top fentanyl producers and distributors, culminating in a pandemic of fentanyl overdoses and deaths in the United States.
The Biden administration will be lifting sanctions on a Chinese government ministry, in exchange for bolstering anti-drug trafficking measures, Bloomberg reported. “We’re hoping to see some progress on that issue this coming week,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday, according to the New York Post. “That could then open the door to further cooperation on other issues where we aren’t just managing things, but we’re actually delivering tangible results.”
The Daily Caller News Foundation noted that should a deal materialize, it will be at least the third time that China has promised to get tough on fentanyl. In 2016, China agreed to increase counter-narcotics operations, and Xi again agreed to launch a crackdown in 2018. Nonetheless, China and Mexico are “the primary source countries for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the United States,” according to a 2020 DEA intelligence report.
“China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States.”
President Joe Biden and Xi are meeting for the first time in over a year during this week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco. Sources familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will crack down on Chinese companies manufacturing chemical precursors for fentanyl in exchange for the U.S. lifting sanctions on the Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science, which the Commerce Department added to the Entity List in 2020 for “engaging in human rights violations and abuses” in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
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