Coronavirus: Thread

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Sun Aug 21 18:15:16 PDT 2022


US National Institutes Of Health Ending Subaward For Wuhan Lab

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-national-institutes-of-health-halting-money-from-grant-from-lab-in-wuhan-china_4677485.html
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22156099-nih-letter-to-comer
https://www.theepochtimes.com/newly-released-documents-show-nih-funded-gain-of-function-research-in-china-experts_4061437.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/nih-reveals-wuhan-lab-partner-ecohealth-alliance-committed-more-grant-violations_4210703.html
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22156098-nih-letter-to-ecohealth

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has ended a subgrant to the
laboratory in China located where the first COVID-19 cases were identified
in 2019.

U.S.-based EcoHealth Alliance was granted $3.7 million, starting in 2014,
to study bat-related coronaviruses. It conveyed some of the money to
the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), located in China.

The grant was renewed in 2019, but suspended in 2020 because of concerns
the grantees were failing to comply with conditions attached to the money.

The NIH's review of the concerns has concluded, Dr. Michael Lauer, an NIH
deputy director, revealed in a letter on Aug. 19. It determined that all
of the problems cannot be fixed.

Therefore, the NIH informed EcoHealth Alliance that the subaward to the
Wuhan lab is terminated "for failure to meet award terms and conditions
requiring provision of records to NIH upon request," Lauer wrote to Rep.
James Comer (R-Ky.), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee.

`Cannot Be Remedied'

Grants from the U.S. government come with certain conditions, including
timely reporting of results, and adequate monitoring of experiments.

The EcoHealth Alliance failed to perform a review of the research
conducted under the grant, which included making bat coronaviruses more
dangerous, the NIH said in October 2021. The agency in January said
EcoHealth Alliance failed to comply with other conditions with the grant,
R01AI110964, and other awards.

The NIH asked for plans to correct the failures, which was provided on
Feb. 4, Lauer said Friday, and the NIH determined that the plans were
sufficient.

Separately, though, the NIH asked EcoHealth in late 2021, and again in
January, for lab notebooks and original files from the research conducted
at the Wuhan lab. It has not received them, according to the new letter.

EcoHealth executives have said that it passed along the request but have
not heard back from WIV.

The refusal to provide the materials led to the just-announced termination
of the subaward.

"NIH has determined that WIV’s refusal to provide the requested records,
and EHA’s failure to include the required terms in WIV’s subaward
agreement represent material failures to comply with the terms of award,"
Lauer told Drs. Aleksei Chmura and Peter Daszak, the executives, in a
letter released on Friday by Comer. "NIH has further determined that in
these circumstances, WIV’s refusal to provide records cannot be remedied
by imposing additional conditions, and that a partial termination of award
(i.e., termination of the subaward to WIV) is the only appropriate
action."

EcoHealth did not respond to requests for comment. An email sent to the
Wuhan lab bounced back.

Will Keep Funding EcoHealth

The NIH is not terminating any of the awards in question,
R01AI110964, 1U01AI151797-01, and 1U01AI153420-01—at least for now.

When grantees are not compliant with requirements, the preference is to
work with them to bring them into compliance rather than termination,
Lauer said.

EcoHealth has successfully implemented the NIH-approved corrective plans
for the latter two awards, according to the NIH. While EcoHealth will be
forbidden to dole money out to WIV under the other grant, it will be able
to renegotiate the objectives of the grant with the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, led by Dr. Anthony Fauci.

If an agreement is reached, the revised grant will move forward. If it is
not, the grant may be terminated.

EcoHealth was asked to outline within 30 days how it will accomplish the
purpose of the grant without WIV. That will require a change in scope but
the change may not depart significantly from the original project, Lauer
said.

Comer said the NIH should have ended the award entirely.

“Terminating EcoHealth Alliance’s partnership with the Wuhan Lab is
the bare minimum. It’s unacceptable that the NIH continues to allow
EcoHealth Alliance to receive taxpayer dollars even though it is confirmed
EcoHealth violated the terms of its grant contract," he said.

"EcoHealth’s dangerous experiments in Wuhan and possible efforts to
cover up any evidence may have started the pandemic. EcoHealth should not
receive a penny of American taxpayer dollars for their gross mismanagement
of Americans’ hard-earned money," he added.


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