A new report has surfaced, implicating Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance, Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in research that may have resulted in the deaths of over 1.1 million Americans and 6.9 million people worldwide.
Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, it was revealed that the NIAID and USAID allocated $41 million for coronavirus research conducted by an EcoHealth Alliance subcontractor.
The subcontractor, Ben Hu, served as the lead researcher at the WIV for gain-of-function studies on SARS-like coronaviruses. Hu was also one of the first individuals to contract COVID-19 in November 2019.
Alina Chan, a molecular scientist from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, compared Hu to Shi Zhengli, noting his involvement in creating and testing chimeric SARS-like viruses in humanized mice. This risky research made him particularly vulnerable to infection.
Another FOIA lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revealed that Ben Hu’s name appeared on grants funded by the NIAID and USAID, both led by Fauci at the time.
The NIAID grant, administered through EcoHealth Alliance, amounted to $3,586,760, with an additional $3,086,735 provided between June 2014 and May 2019. The USAID investment in the “PREDICT-2” project, also managed by EcoHealth Alliance, reached $38 million from October 2014 to September 2019, with Hu listed as part of the project.
The White Coat Waste Project stated that Hu’s experiments received over $41 million from NIAID and USAID grants, funded by U.S. taxpayers. However, the exact amount allocated to Hu’s facility has not been disclosed by the government.
Hu’s research primarily focused on modifying coronaviruses to enhance their ability to bind to human cells, with the goal of identifying pandemic-causing viruses and developing vaccines.
The White Coat Waste Project highlighted concerns over the collection of wild coronaviruses without proper protective gear, transportation to a lab in a densely populated area, gain-of-function experiments, subsequent illnesses resembling COVID-19 symptoms, and subsequent cover-ups of identities and medical histories.
Fauci denied sponsoring this research and stated during a congressional hearing in May 2021 that the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research at the WIV. However, a letter from then-NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence A. Tabak to Representative James Comer indicated that EcoHealth Alliance conducted a “limited experiment” in Wuhan, failing to promptly report the results as required.
A January investigation by the HHS Office of Inspector General revealed that the NIH was aware of potential hazards associated with China research funded through EcoHealth Alliance but did not effectively monitor or take timely action to address compliance issues.
Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, had previously dismissed allegations of a WIV leak as “conspiracy theories” and criticized NIH requests for investigating the institute.
