The Department of Health and Human Services announced that they barred the Wuhan Institute of Virology from receiving funds from the US for the next 10 years as they saw evidence points of the COVID-19 pandemic leaked out of a Chinese lab.
Wuhan Institute of Virology
Secretary Xavier Becerra from the Office of Health Services and Human Services send a letter to Wuhan Institute of Virology Director General, Dr. Yanyi Wang on Tuesday, informing that the lab, which conducted a risky experiment on bat coronaviruses, will be denied US research grants until July 16, 2033.
In a report by New York Post, the letter sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology talked about the attempts that had been made to connect the lab via fax, email, and mail about the HHS’s decision to suspend the funding in July, but no Wuhan Institute of Virology officials answered the designation or even answered to the agency.
The NIH found that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was found to conduct an experiment bringing a level of viral activity that was greater than permitted under the terms of the grant and that was the study of bat coronaviruses. Also, there are requests from Chinese research institutions’ lab findings that were not answered after NIH made a request for them on Nov. 5, 2021, and Jan. 6, 2022.
In another report published by Reuters, the letter stated that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has not acknowledged their violations and has not cooperated with the Government in addressing this certain violation. They also have not accepted their violations and have no action to eliminate the risk to the Government in conducting business transactions with the Wuhan Institute of Virology Presently or into the future.
A research institution’s regular debarment period is often no longer than three years.
Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, issued a redacted version of the letter on Wednesday and hailed it as an “obvious step in the right direction.”
Also, the Select Subcommittee said that the prominent public health authorities including Dr. Anthony Fauci knew that the laboratory at Wuhan Institute of Virology knew that there the laboratory was risky prior to the COVID-19 worldwide.
HHS has not yet made any public remarks regarding the decision. Requests for a response from The Post went unanswered by the organization or its executive in charge of suspension and debarment.
According to a Government Accountability Office study published in June, US taxpayers paid $2,168,345 in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to the Chinese research institutions between 2014 and 2021.
Also, there are more than $1.4 million of the funds went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology which was allocated by the Manhattan-based EcoHealth Alliance.
Also, the Energy Department concluded that the SARS-CoV-2 is likely to be in the Chinese lab. The CIA doesn’t was unable to come to a determination about the pandemic origins.
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