Federal Taxpayer Funding Currently Suspended for Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance – It Must Be Permanent
Updated
On May 15, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) suspended all federal funding for the highly suspect EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) and initiated debarment proceedings that would ensure the Wuhan Institute of Virology partner in crime be prohibited from receiving federal funding for several years. No doubt, it’s a step in the right direction. The New York City-based non-profit led by Dr. Peter Daszak came under scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic for collaborating with the Wuhan Institute’s virology lab that very likely leaked the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that locked down humanity.
The action referral memorandum issued by HHS regarding EHA emphasized a failure to monitor a risky experiment on coronaviruses, a failure to obtain lab notebooks from the world’s foremost research lab for SARS-like viruses, the Wuhan lab, a failure to disclose plans involving taxpayer money, and a long-delayed grant report explaining the collaboration’s research in the months leading up to the pandemic. EHA has thirty days to issue a response.
As is indeed now understood by everyone paying attention, under Dr. Anthony Fauci’s direction, with millions in funding from U.S. taxpayers, Daszak and his comrades worked with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology for years on risky virus manipulation, with plans to release enhanced airborne coronavirus particles into Chinese bat populations to inoculate them against diseases that could jump to humans.
In 2019, one year before the pandemic, in a venture dubbed Project DEFUSE, the Wuhan lab and EHA proposed high-risk coronavirus research, creating viruses with what we now know are the defining features of SARS-CoV-2. Specifically, the project aimed to search for and assemble SARS-like viruses carrying spikes with a distinctive feature—a furin cleavage site. On June 3, 2024, supporting the belief the pandemic started in the Wuhan lab, the New York Times reported, “This is the very feature that enhances SARS-CoV-2’s infectiousness in humans, making it capable of causing a pandemic.” Taxpayers cannot be expected to fund this kind of insanity.
When announcing the funding halt, HHS’s Henrietta K. Brisbon, MBA, Suspension and Debarment Official and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisitions, explained that debarment is generally for a period not to exceed three years. However, she added, “Regardless of whether EHA contests this action or responds to this notice, I may impose debarment for a longer period or shorter period as the circumstances warrant.“ The recommendation to formally debar Daszak and EHA, as well as withhold all active grants, came from the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. Pleased that HHS accepted the committee’s request, Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said in a statement:
“EcoHealth Alliance and Dr. Peter Daszak should never again receive a single penny from the U.S. taxpayer. Only two weeks after the Select Subcommittee released an extensive report detailing EcoHealth’s wrongdoing and recommending the formal debarment of EcoHealth and its president, HHS has begun efforts to cut off all U.S. funding to this corrupt organization.
EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight, willingly violated multiple requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, and apparently made false statements to the NIH. These actions are wholly abhorrent, indefensible, and must be addressed with swift action. EcoHealth’s immediate funding suspension and future debarment is not only a victory for the U.S. taxpayer but also for American national security and the safety of citizens worldwide.
The Select Subcommittee’s investigation into EcoHealth and the origins of COVID-19 is far from over. Dr. Daszak and his team are still required to produce all outstanding documents and answer the Select Subcommittee’s questions, specifically related to Dr. Daszak’s potential dishonesty under oath. We will hold EcoHealth accountable for any waste, fraud, and abuse and are committed to uncovering any illegal activity, including lying to Congress, NIH, or the Inspector General.”
Indeed, EHA and Daszak should never again receive a single penny from U.S. taxpayers. Nonetheless, as to be expected from a corrupt organization using other people’s money to create viruses that induce pandemics, EHA is not going down without a fight. In a statement issued on June 3, 2024, EHA insisted that “in a difficult political landscape, these false narratives find fertile ground.” Noting that the company strongly refutes recent allegations, EHA’s statement added, “Over the past four years, as we’ve all lived through a global coronavirus pandemic that originated in China and its aftermath, our work has become politicized, with negative narratives amplified.”
If they weren’t up to no good, why did EHA and the others transport viruses from remote areas to dense urban areas like Wuhan and then enhance their ability to infect humans? As pointed out by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK), this action alone carries enormous pandemic risks, especially for a company that marketed itself as capable of preventing a pandemic before it begins by collecting animal viruses and applying gain-of-function techniques to predict the mutations required for them to spill over into humans. These claims provoked mistrust even among some virologists.
In addition to suspending and debarring Daszak and the well-connected EHA, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic recommended that the Justice Department investigate Daszak for possible criminal violations, including making false statements. Moreover, Daszak’s grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) required him to provide a report describing EHA’s collaboration with the Wuhan lab and their virus tinkering. This report should have been submitted before the pandemic emerged. That didn’t happen. Instead, USRTK noted it was presented almost two years late, “when there was an enormous incentive to omit experiments of concern.”
Besides wreaking mayhem and outright lying to the American people footing the bill for his delusions, like Fauci, Daszak took advantage of his lucrative federal government funding arrangements. Like royalty, Daszak and his team traversed the globe in style thanks to support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), another crooked government agency that happens to be a substantial partner with the Gates Foundation. Indeed, those attempting to strip our freedoms have woven a tight web of corruption, no doubt so arrogant and blinded by greed they believe we’re not shrewd enough to notice. After obtaining emails detailing Daszak’s exorbitant travels, USRTK reported:
“Daszak and other senior virus hunters requested at least $292,701 in government-funded international business class flights over the course of three years, according to a U.S. Right to Know analysis of hundreds of emails.
Daszak and another EcoHealth virus hunter, William Karesh, each requested over $100,000 in premium flights from 2017 to 2019 — paid for by the American taxpayer. Karesh requested to fly business class to France six times in 2017 and 2018 alone.
After one request for a business class flight topping $18,900, Andrew Clements, a senior scientific PREDICT advisor who approved the trips, noted that EcoHealth Alliance’s requests were consistently higher than other project partners.”
It is time for schemes like this to end and those responsible to be held accountable. Nevertheless, scoffing at its accusers, EHA insists HHS’s allegations are baseless and without merit. EHA’s June 3, 2024 rebuttal stated that the accusations against them focus on their work in China, which they declare was “designed to try to understand why that region is an emerging disease hotspot and how SARS, H5N1 high path avian flu, and COVID-19 originated.“ Yes, they are also working on H5N1. Alas, we see what’s going on, and as we expressed when reporting on the scandalous prescribing of statin drugs to lower cholesterol, “the jig is up.” Still, these ruthless people remain steadfastly focused on the next catastrophe. Will it be the much-hyped Bird Flu? Making a point to mention the “highly pathogenic strain of avian flu circulating the world,” EHA’s rather lengthy and no doubt false statement asserted:
“While it was unfortunate that our research was not able to prevent COVID-19 from happening, it was able to provide a lot of data and information that was used to test the COVID-19 vaccines, drugs, and treatments that saved millions of lives, both in the U.S. and globally, during the pandemic.
In our field, there is a term known as the Prevention Paradox; it posits that you will never know the extent of the pandemic you have successfully prevented. We do, however, know the costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, in both dollars and lives and now that a highly pathogenic strain of avian flu is circulating the world, with evidence of transmission between multiple species—we’d like nothing more than to get back to the work of preventing the next pandemic.”