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Finally! Biden cuts off funding for Chinese bio lab where COVID may have been cooked up – wait, what funding?

July 19, 2023 | | Print Article

The federal government’s slow walk on safety at last led to a decision on the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s (WIV) funding that still skirted a determination on the COVID lab leak theory.

Despite the National Institutes of Health (NIH) cutting off direct federal funding to the Chinese facility from their coffers in July 2020, a new memo from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) appeared to make a broader and more permanent decision.

Obtained by Bloomberg News, the Monday memo found that WIV “is not compliant with federal regulations and is not presently responsible.”

The decision came after President Joe Biden’s administration sought a review of the facility that had begun in Sept. 2022. Further details from HHS’s deputy assistant secretary for acquisition concluded the institute’s “disregard of the NIH’s requests” and likely violations of biosafety protocols pose a risk that they “not only previously violated, but is currently violating, and will continue to violate, protocols of the NIH on biosafety.”

“Therefore, I have determined that the immediate suspension of WIV is necessary to mitigate any potential public health risk,” the assistant secretary stated.

A spokesperson for HHS contended to Bloomberg, “This action will ensure the WIV does not receive another dollar of federal funding,” and noted, “The move was undertaken due to WIV’s failure to provide documentation on WIV’s research requested by NIH related to concerns that WIV violated NIH’s biosafety protocols.”

The decision from the administration followed a vote last week in the House of Representatives to include an amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that looked to more thoroughly put an end to American taxpayers funding Chinese bio labs.

Drafted by Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain (R), the amendment that passed 219-210 was designed to ensure that “none of the funds authorized to be appropriated” would go toward the WIV or its partner group EcoHealth Alliance.

EcoHealth had reportedly received $26 million in Department of Defense grants since 2020 and was known to have close ties to the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Questions have remained about what Fauci may have known with allegations pointing to massive coverups, particularly with regard to potential gain-of-function research. Meanwhile, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) recently raised new concerns about HHS’s handling of funds after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request found that the U.S. Marshals Service continued to foot the bill for the retired government employee to have a security detail.

“HHS actually came back to us and said they haven’t been paying for it since January. But then we discovered that Fox did a Freedom of Information Act and a judge forced them to say that, well, while HHS wasn’t directly funding it, the U.S. Marshals were funding it,” Paul told Fox News host Jesse Watters adding, “somebody else is doing it and then we’re reimbursing them.”

“So it’s a terrible example of the government lying to its representatives and to the people. But also, why is a retired guy — the only retired official I know of that gets this kind of treatment is a former president,” the senator continued. “So I have no idea why this bureaucrat still has a limo driver, security detail, and we want to know, does he still get legal representation, because I think he may need that eventually.”

Earlier this year, the Department of Energy joined the FBI in supporting the theory that COVID had likely leaked from WIV, and investigations conducted by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic had presented evidence that Fauci had played an integral role in the production of a study to “disprove” that theory.

A March memo from the subcommittee read in part, “New evidence released by the Select Subcommittee today suggests that Dr. Fauci ‘prompted’ the drafting of a publication that would ‘disprove’ the lab leak theory, the authors of this paper skewed available evidence to achieve that goal…”

Kevin Haggerty
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