Quote:The Biden administration is initiating measures to implement a decade-long funding ban on the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This Chinese research laboratory has been the subject of ongoing controversy regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. A memo publicized by a House subcommittee on Tuesday and an insider with knowledge on the matter confirm this information.

The memo, drafted by a Health and Human Services Department official, indicates the Wuhan institute has not complied with numerous requests from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for laboratory notebooks and other vital documents to verify its safety protocols.

The anonymous official asserted that the NIH’s finding of the Wuhan institute’s probable violation of its biosafety protocols is unquestionable. The memo recommended suspending funding to mitigate any potential public health risks, and it confirmed sufficient evidence to commence “debarment proceedings.”

Despite having received no federal funds since 2020, the institute now has a month to reply to the notice.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released the memo on Tuesday. It was first reported by Bloomberg. House panel Republicans have persuasively shown that the virus likely originated from a lab leak, focusing their scrutiny on the Wuhan Institute’s research.

The House committee last week made public an email that raises concerns regarding Anthony Fauci, former White House coronavirus task force advisor and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The email, shared on the subcommittee’s Twitter account, indicates that Fauci was aware of gain-of-function research being conducted in Wuhan, China.

Dated February 1, 2020, the email contains a summary of a meeting attended by Fauci and other scientists, discussing the origins of the coronavirus. In his summary, Fauci mentions the scientists expressing concerns about a paper from an Indian research group. The paper suggested that there were unusual mutations in the virus, which would be highly unlikely to have occurred naturally in bats. The scientists suspected that these mutations might have been deliberately introduced.

Fauci, referring to the Indian scientists, noted, “They were concerned about the fact that upon viewing the sequences of several isolates of the nCoV, there were mutations in the virus that would be most unusual to have evolved naturally in the bats and that there was a suspicion that this mutation was intentionally inserted.”

“The suspicion was heightened by the fact that scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments to determine the molecular mechanisms associated with bat viruses adapting to human infection, and the outbreak originated in Wuhan,” Fauci added.

Following the pandemic’s onset, the Trump administration halted a grant to EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit organization that partnered with the NIAID and the Wuhan institute to research bat coronaviruses in China.

NIH officials have consistently defended — often in fiery confrontations with congressional Republicans — that U.S. taxpayer dollars were not funneled into any lab research that could have led to the pandemic. However, they also conceded they’re uncertain about the other types of research the Wuhan Institute was carrying out.

Earlier this year, an internal oversight body reported that the NIH had made significant mistakes in managing the grants. A comprehensive 64-page report detailed missed deadlines, unclear protocols, and misallocated funds. It underscored the concerns about the federal government’s system for monitoring research involving potentially hazardous pathogens.

In May, EcoHealth’s grant was reinstated, albeit without any provision for funding research in China or involving animals.