Biden administration suspends funding for Wuhan la
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The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report last month that stated the US intelligence community could not determine whether researchers at the lab who fell ill in the fall of 2019 were infected with Covid-19, but identified safety and security issues at the lab. Many other experts say evidence suggests that the coronavirus likely emerged naturally and spread to humans in a Wuhan seafood market.
The National Institutes of Health notified EcoHealth Alliance – a US-based organization that received a 2014 grant from NIH that was partly funneled to the Wuhan Institute – in April 2020 that it was reviewing allegations linking the Wuhan Institute to the coronavirus pandemic. And in July of that year, NIH told EcoHealth it had received reports of “biosafety concerns” at the lab.
Collaboration between the organization and Chinese scientists came alongside broader efforts by American scientists to engage with researchers around the world to better understand animal viruses in their regions that could pose a risk to humans.
Researchers at the institute studied bat coronaviruses, but have repeatedly denied that the lab was related to the outbreak of the virus that causes Covid-19.
Instead, they have pointed to their contributions to understanding the virus, which included publishing information in early 2020 identifying what was at that point the closest known relative virus to the one that causes Covid-19.
China has blocked international scientists from freely exploring all hypotheses for how the virus emerged – hampering research that could have potentially shone a light on the outbreak’s origin.
The World Health Organization has repeatedly called for further investigation in the country, including a laboratory audit and studies that could turn up evidence for the natural emergence of the virus.
Beijing has defended its transparency and decried what it sees as US-led “politicizing” of the issue, while trying to point the finger away from itself.
Chinese officials have suggested the virus didn’t emerge within the country’s borders and called on the US to audit its own laboratories, without providing clear reasoning for why this would be necessary.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/18/politics/biden...index.html