US Lawmakers Investigate Funds Diverted to China for Research on Pathogens of ‘Pandemic Potential’

Chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), speaks during a press conference unveiling the results of the Committee’s investigation into the biolab discovered in Reedley, Calif., in Washington on Nov. 15, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Republican lawmakers have launched an investigation into the issue of Defense Department taxpayer dollars sent to China for conducting risky biological research.

The recently passed 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) included a provision authored by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) directing the Defense Department OIG to determine the amount of funds the Pentagon may have provided to institutions in China for research on any pathogens with “pandemic potential.” The lawmakers announced on Thursday they were “launching an investigation” to this effect.

The provision requires the Defense Department Inspector General (IG)  to investigate the amount of such federal funds awarded by the Pentagon “through grants, contracts, subgrants, subcontracts, or any other type of agreement or collaboration” over a 10-year period, the lawmakers wrote in a Jan. 25 letter to IG Robert P. Storch.

The scope of the investigation was to uncover Defense Department funds used in “research or experiments that could have reasonably resulted in the enhancement of any coronavirus, influenza, Nipah, Ebola, or other pathogen of pandemic potential or chimeric versions of such a virus” in China and other nations.

The provision required that the IG specify the nations in which such research or experiments were being conducted and the pathogens involved in these studies. The IG is mandated to investigate the following entities:

• The People’s Republic of China.
• Communist Party of China (CCP).
• The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) or any other organization administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences
• New York-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance Inc. for any research work they performed in China supported by the CCP regime. The scope of the investigation includes any subsidiaries and related organizations that are directly controlled by EcoHealth.
• The Academy of Military Medical Sciences or any of its research institutes, including the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology.
• Any other lab, agency, organization, individual, or instrumentality that is owned, controlled, or overseen by the entities listed above.

“A comprehensive review of these matters is crucial for identifying potential national security threats that could result either from Pentagon procurement of technology from Chinese companies or dangerous experiments being conducted in foreign laboratories with substandard safety conditions,” the letter said. “Due to the lack of accuracy and completeness of federal spending data, only the DOD OIG has the capabilities to conduct these investigations.”

Lack of Accountability

The letter cited a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) published last year to point out that “it is nearly impossible to determine the amount of U.S. tax dollars being paid to institutions in China—or anywhere else—because government agencies do not track the money after it is passed down from the initial recipients.”

Moreover, the information that is being collected tends to often be “incomplete and inaccurate.” Last year, Ms. Ernst partnered with nonprofit group OpenTheBooks in an investigation of such fund flows. They found that over $490 million in U.S. grants and contracts went to organizations located in China since 2017.

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Out of that, DoD spent $51.6 million. This included “$6 million for tech support of military ‘deployment and distribution command’ software, even though the DOD Inspector General warned the Pentagon against using Chinese IT companies for DOD projects,” the letter stated.

Documents obtained by the nonprofit U.S. Right to Know showed that EcoHealth and its collaborators attempted to “deceive the Pentagon about their intention to divert defense dollars to China’s state-run Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for risky research,” lawmakers said.

Multiple U.S. agencies believe the COVID-19 virus leaked from the WIV. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report in June last year lending credence to the theory.

In 2018, EcoHealth submitted plans to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to “engineer bat coronaviruses to become infectious to human cells.” However, the group “intentionally omitted the plans to conduct the experiments” at the WIV, the lawmakers wrote. “The proposal was also edited to conceal that the experiments would occur in a lower biosafety level lab.”

Though DARPA rejected the proposal, EcoHealth received funding from the military, with the DoD granting the group $47 million since 2008.

“At least $1.4 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars transferred from EcoHealth to the Wuhan Institute of Virology evaded detection.”

The letter highlighted an audit conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG) which found that EcoHealth hid the fact it sent $600,000 in U.S. grants to WIV.

“Through intentional withholding of information or legal loopholes, EcoHealth successfully concealed spending more than $1 million of U.S. taxpayer money on risky research on bat coronaviruses in China’s Wuhan Institute for Virology, from where the virus that caused COVID-19 likely leaked, according to U.S. intelligence experts,” the letter said.

“This review isn’t about just one bad actor flouting federal laws and biosafety standards. EcoHealth demonstrates how easy it is to bend and ignore government grant requirements while continuing to receive millions of dollars from other agencies without any additional accountability requirements.”

Engineering Viruses

In a Jan. 25 statement, Ms. Ernst said that American taxpayers have the right to know how much of their country’s money is being sent to China and why Washington is “collecting and creating deadly super viruses” that can pose a threat to national security.

“We cannot trust the mad scientists at EcoHealth to get their hands on taxpayer money or bats ever again. Folks, it’s just common sense that the Pentagon should never purchase any item with known espionage risks from a Chinese company,” she said.

“This investigation is the first step to bringing long overdue transparency and accountability to the indefensible ways Washington is spending our defense dollars.”

Mr. Gallagher pointed out that tens of millions of dollars from DoD getting into the hands of America’s enemies is “not just a massive accounting error.”

Documents published by U.S. Right to Know earlier this month showed that under EcoHealth’s proposal submitted to DARPA, American scientists aimed to work with WIV “to engineer novel coronaviruses with the features of SARS-CoV-2 the year before the virus emerged from that city,” the nonprofit said in a Jan. 18 post.

An American virologist who worked with the WIV intended to engineer “twenty or more ‘chimeric’ SARS-related viral spike proteins per year.”