by Nathaniel Weixel and Joseph Choi
The Biden administration is suspending all federal funding to the Wuhan lab at the center of controversy over the origins of the coronavirus and is moving to cut off payments permanently.
The announcement came Monday in a memo sent sent by the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which has been probing the administration’s grants to the Wuhan Institute.
Republican members of the panel have insisted the virus was manufactured in the Chinese facility with the aid of U.S. funding and spread worldwide because of a lab leak.
GOP lawmakers offered no praise for the decision, saying it was long overdue.
“It’s past time that the Biden administration made this decision, but they deserve no credit for finally doing what the evidence and facts demanded. It is outrageous that it took them so long. HHS must now consider a similar debarment for EcoHealth Alliance,” the GOP leaders of the Energy and Commerce Committee and its subcommittees said in a statement.
The memo from a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official said the Wuhan Institute of Virology has repeatedly refused to provide documents and answer questions from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about safety and security. HHS also told the lab it’s seeking to cut off funding permanently.
That the Wuhan Institute “likely violated protocols of the NIH regarding biosafety is undisputed,” wrote the official, whose name was redacted. “As such, there is risk that WIV not only previously violated, but is currently violating, and will continue to violate, protocols of the NIH on biosafety.”
The institute, which has not received NIH money since 2020, now has 30 days to respond to the notice.
“Therefore, I have determined that the immediate suspension of WIV is necessary to mitigate any potential public health risk,” the HHS official wrote.
