HHS Probed EcoHealth Over Alleged ‘Major Fraud’ Against US, Emails Show

Laboratory technicians wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) work on samples to be tested for the Covid-19 coronavirus at a Covid-19 testing facility in Wuhan in China's central Hubei Province early on Aug. 5, 2021. STR/AFP via Getty Images

The Department of Health and Human Services’s watchdog briefly probed EcoHealth Alliance, a New York nonprofit that has collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, over alleged “major fraud against the United States,” newly released emails show.

The four-month-long probe, which opened in September 2020, centered around an allegation that “the COVID-19 virus was generated in ... China with the assistance of an NIH [National Institutes of Health] Grant.”