Quick Drill Down recap…
British zoologist Peter Daszak, who runs EcoHealth Alliance and funded studies in Wuhan, China —ground zero for COVID-19 —is getting five years and $650K to research “the potential for future bat coronavirus emergence” in Asia, with scientists set to trawl caves in Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam in the hunt to prevent another viral crisis.
Doesn’t it sound like we’re just gearing up for COVID-THE SEQUEL? Hawkeye State Senator Joni Ernst certainly thinks so —and she’s introduced a bill to stop any federal money from going to EcoHealth.
The bill states, “No funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law may be made available for any purpose to EcoHealth Alliance, Inc, including any subsidiaries and related organizations that are directly controlled by EcoHealth Alliance, Inc.,” The Daily Caller reported on Friday.
EcoHealth provided $600,000 in the form of NIH subgrants to the Wuhan lab between 2014 and 2019 to study bat-based coronaviruses.
“Giving taxpayer money to EcoHealth to study pandemic prevention is like paying a suspected arsonist to conduct fire safety inspections. NIH got it right when it canceled the funding for the experiments EcoHealth Alliance was conducting with China’s state-run Wuhan Institute. In addition to violating multiple federal laws, EcoHealth has still not turned over documents about these dangerous studies that NIH has requested on multiple occasions that could offer vital clues to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ernst told the Caller before introducing the bill.
“I have introduced legislation to guarantee EcoHealth doesn’t receive another penny from any federal agency and to launch an investigation to determine once and for all how much U.S. taxpayer money was funneled into labs in China by EcoHealth,” Ernst added.
“EcoHealth Alliance’s animal experiments should be defunded, not refunded. As we first exposed, this shady group funneled US tax dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for dangerous animal experiments that likely caused the pandemic, skirted a federal ban on gain-of-function research, repeatedly violated transparency law and obstructed investigations into COVID’s origins,” Justin Goodman, senior vice president of advocacy and public policy at White Coat Waste Project told the Caller.
“Yet, records show that EHA has continued to receive millions of taxpayer dollars just since the pandemic began. We applaud Sen. Ernst for working to ensure that taxpayers are not forced to fund this reckless rogue lab contractor any longer. Stop the money, stop the madness,” Goodman added.
Not one more cent to EcoHealth until we get to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19.
Godspeed, Ms. Ernst.
