EcoHealth Alliance to use the funding to “reduce the threat of viral spillover from wildlife in the Philippines.”
QUICK FACTS:
- Beginning December 12, 2022, through December 11, 2025, the Department of Defense (DOD) will granting EcoHealth Alliance $3 million.
- The funds were provided by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) for the purpose of “combating weapons of mass destruction.”
- According to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA), the program is to “support and stimulate basic, applied, and advanced research at educational or research institutions, non-profit organizations, and commercial firms, which support the advancement of fundamental knowledge and understanding of the sciences with an emphasis on exploring new and innovative research for combating or countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).”
- EcoHealth Alliance has received government grants since 2008, totaling $79.4 million.
- Funding for “Scientific Research” into “Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction” began in 2014.
- The New York Post reported that from 2018-2020, “100 percent of DTRA’s awards to EcoHealth went toward the program,” with $21.33 million being granted in 2020 alone.
- The accumulation of awards to EcoHealth Alliance is “an enormous sum,” said Dr. Richard Ebright, Rutgers University chemistry professor and lab director at the school’s Waksman Institute of Microbiology, noting that most research occurs outside the United States with minimal oversight.
ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE & CORONAVIRUS RESEARCH
- The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) gave $653,392 to EcoHealth Alliance for the purpose of researching the “potential for future bat coronavirus emergence in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam.”
- Following accusations of gain-of-function research in the Wuhan lab, the NIH withdrew EcoHealth Alliance’s relationship with the Chinese lab but still allowed EcoHealth to receive grants with government oversight.
- “EcoHealth conducted gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, knew about the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup, and failed to inform the U.S. government,” said House Oversight Committee member James Comer (R-KY).
- “EcoHealth should not receive a penny of American taxpayer dollars for their gross mismanagement of Americans’ hard-earned money,” he added.
- Republican Senator Joni Ernst (IA) also introduced the bill “Defund EcoHealth Alliance Act,” which “prohibits the award of federal funds to EcoHealth Alliance, Inc.”
BACKGROUND:
- American Faith reported that EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak called for an almost $1 trillion grant from the Biden administration to fund “pandemic prevention.”
- Daszak worked in conjunction with Russian researchers to study “bat viromes” in 2015.
