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White House ordered NIH to cancel coronavirus research funding, Fauci says:
The National Institutes of Health abruptly cut off funding to a long-standing, well-regarded research project on bat coronaviruses only after the White House specifically told it to do so, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci made the revelation Tuesday at a Congressional hearing on the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is caused by a coronavirus that is genetically linked to those found in bats. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) asked Fauci why the NIH abruptly canceled funding for the project, which specifically worked to understand the risk of bat coronaviruses jumping to humans and causing devastating disease.
Fauci responded to Veasey saying: "It was cancelled because the NIH was told to cancel it."
"And why were they told to cancel it?" Veasey pressed.
"I don't know the reason, but we were told to cancel it," Fauci said.
After the hearing, Fauci clarified to Politico that it was the White House that told the NIH to cancel the funding. An unnamed White House official told Politico that the White House did encourage the funding cut, but ultimately it was the Department of Health and Human Services—of which the NIH is a part—that made the final decision. An HHS spokesperson said only that the funding was cut because "the grantee was not in compliance with NIH's grant policy."
In an emailed statement to Ars Wednesday, the NIH did not respond to questions about the cancellation, saying only that "NIH does not discuss internal deliberations on grant terminations."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:24AM (5 children)
That is one of the leading theories, but it is missing the critical element: Criminally irresponsible mishandling of containment procedures. The Wuhan Institute of Virology was specifically called out for that by the US State Dept.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:32AM
By Golly you've nailed it! It was the Chinese all along. The Prrrresident was right. We must tell the voters.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:45AM (3 children)
(same poster that you are responding to)
Well, no one really knows if it's the researchers that got the virus from the bats and spread it or not. I don't expect China to ever admit such a thing so no one will ever know. We can only guess and my guess is as good as anyone else's.
But the fact of the matter is that life is messy and things happen. Researching an infectious agent increases the possibility of you getting exposed to, infected by, and spreading such an agent.
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Sunday June 28 2020, @06:10PM (2 children)
Regards of the reality of what actually happened ...
When you include the early destruction of data and lab samples along with the panic shutdown of Wuhan we can infer with a high degree of probability that that is what the CCP thought happened.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Sunday June 28 2020, @09:27PM (1 child)
If what you write is true, it doesn't mean that Cov-SARS-2 was first found in the lab: only that the Chinese authorities had a credible belief that it might have been, as you wrote: "thought happened". The first instinct may well have been to suppress the information and 'ride out the storm' on the basis of wiping out the population of one of your own cities was better than being blamed for the man-made creation of a global pandemic. The Soviet Union hushed up many accidents, and military accidents have been kept secret by all the major (and minor) powers. I wouldn't regard aiming to keep things secret as evidence of guilt - simply evidence that the authorities thought the events could have been self-inflicted.
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Saturday July 11 2020, @07:04PM
I guess we will have to agree to disagree because I find it to be compelling evidence that there is more going on the WIV BSL4 lab than the open research in contrast to what has be public stated.
If NIH funds were being used to advance non-shared research that is very probably advancing a military research project combined with Xi's shift to an expansionist footing is simply absurd.