Group involved in Wuhan virus studies debarred by US health department

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said that the department made its decision based on evidence uncovered by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Peter Daszak

Credit: X/@PeterDaszak

By Yi Wei Wong

The US Department of Health and Human Services has cut off all funding and formally debarred EcoHealth Alliance Inc. and its former president, Peter Daszak, for five years following scrutiny over its involvement in virus research in Wuhan, China, ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The department made its decision based on evidence uncovered by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said on its website on Friday.

EcoHealth and Daszak had facilitated so-called gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, without proper oversight and violated requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, the committee said.

James Comer, chairman of the committee, said the decision was a “victory for the US taxpayer,” adding that EcoHealth had continually ignored government oversight requests and failed to report gain-of-function experiments conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.