GOODMAN: Congress Cuts Funding For Catastrophic NIH Animal Experiments

A growing majority of Americans — as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Energy and other intelligence and scientific experts — agree that COVID was caused by an animal lab in Wuhan conducting taxpayer-funded “gain-of-function”(GOF) experiments on bat coronaviruses. A unanimous House vote right before Thanksgiving is the latest win in the battle to defund and defeat dangerous and wasteful animal tests like these that can prompt pandemics.

Since early 2020, White Coat Waste (WCW) Project investigations have exposed how Dr. Fauci’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) division senselessly shipped taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan lab via EcoHealth Alliance to collect wild viruses in remote bat caves and supercharge them in GOF experiments to create viruses that were more contagious and deadly to humans. We also uncovered how those risky NIH-funded coronavirus engineering experiments that sickened humanized mice were directly tied to COVID’s likely Patient Zero. 

We’ve subsequently been leading successful efforts on Capitol Hill with lawmakers like Republican Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Rand Paul of Kentucky to defund the Wuhan animal lab, EcoHealth Alliance and GOF experiments with dangerous viruses. We were the first to publicly call on the Biden White House to defund GOF back in Feb. 2021. 

Meanwhile, records show that the NIH and taxpayer-funded animal labs across the country have been resisting reforms to reckless research. 

Fortunately for all of us, they’re losing.

The most recent sign is that right before Thanksgiving, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a WCW-backed amendment introduced by GOP Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Marianette Miller-Meeks of Iowa to cut all funding for GOF experiments with pathogens that can cause pandemics from NIH’s 2024 spending bill. 

In his floor speech, Rep. Massie rightly explained that GOF creates a “cookbook … for the next pandemic,” “creates threats that don’t exist in nature” and that its “risks far outweigh the benefits.” He stated further that “there is no practical application of this outside of the curiosity of a government lab” and that “we shouldn’t be doing it with taxpayer dollars.” 

Miller-Meeks drove the point home: “Last month, during a Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing, Dr. Gerald Parker, former Commander of the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the current head of the federal committee that oversees gain-of-function and biosecurity, testified to Congress that gain-of-function research with potential pandemic pathogens has not contributed significantly to biodefense and that its benefits have been exaggerated. Dr. Parker also stated that there are safer alternatives available.” 

Indeed, GOF experiments with potential pandemic pathogens have never led to any practical benefits for society or prevented a pandemic, but they likely caused one. 

Not a single member of either party spoke in opposition to the GOF defund amendment or related ones offered by Republican Reps. Matt Rosendale of Montana, Paul Gosar of Arizona and August Pfluger of Texas targeting funding for other wasteful and dangerous NIH experiments. The full 2024 NIH spending bill, which still needs a vote in the House, gives the NIH a $3.8 billion haircut and defunds EcoHealth Alliance and all animal labs in hostile nations.

That’s not the only good news. 

Last month, The New York Times, Daily Caller and others reported that GOF animal experiments are being abandoned and canceled after what happened in Wuhan.

The Times wrote that lab leak fears are “drying up funding for scientists who collect or alter dangerous pathogens.” The outlet described how a Penn State proposal to infect ferrets with a mutant bird flu virus was rejected by the NIH and how the State Department’s United States Agency for International Development canceled a controversial $125 million virus-hunting project after pressure from GOP Senators. As Harvard’s Dr. Marc Lipsitch, a longtime GOF critic, told the Times, “Ultimately, they are spending tax dollars.”

The House’s pending legislation is especially timely and critical since we just exposed how NIH is giving millions of tax dollars to EcoHealth Alliance to import hundreds of bats from Asia for a new US lab, and the new NIH director told Sen. Paul that she supports GOF experiments with pandemic pathogens and funding for unaccountable animal labs in China and other foreign countries.

Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund dangerous GOF animal experiments that waste money, torture animals and engineer frankenviruses that can cause pandemics and be used as bioweapons. 

The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness. 

Justin Goodman is the Senior Vice President at government watchdog White Coat Waste Project.