(Headline USA) The Defense Department’s inspector general revealed this week that the DoD has no idea how much it has spent funding dangerous gain-of-function research in China.
The department’s Office of Inspector General released a partially redacted report on the matter Tuesday in response to a request from GOP senators that the agency track the amount of federal funds given either directly or indirectly to Chinese gain-of-function experiments.
Due to limitations in the DoD's tracking systems, the full extent of DoD funds provided to Chinese research laboratories for research related to enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential is unknown. Read our new report now: https://t.co/Ts7V7C15V9
— DoD Office of Inspector General (@DoD_IG) June 20, 2024
Gain-of-function research is defined as research that enhances or adds a viral function by genetic recombination or manipulation. It has been established as fact that Chinese scientists were conducting gain-of-function research on various COVID strains when COVID-19 began to spread. Moreover, it’s been revealed that some of the first people to catch COVID-19 worked in the Wuhan lab in China, where the experiments were conducted.
The DoD’s inspector general sought to discover whether and where funds were spent on “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 or pathogen.”
However, the inspector general admitted that the total amount of U.S. taxpayer dollars spent on such research is impossible to determine.
The report could only account for seven awards granted to researchers in China or other foreign countries performing gain-of-function experiments, as well as $54 million awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, the U.S. nonprofit involved in the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research at the time of the COVID-19 outbreak.
“The full extent of DOD funds provided to Chinese research laboratories or other foreign countries for research related to enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential is unknown,” the report states.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the leading critics of the U.S.’s COVID response, blasted the Defense Department, arguing it shouldn’t have been funding deadly gain-of-function research by unaccountable Chinese scientists at all.
“The Biden DOD has lost track of how much money it has given to Chinese laboratories for ‘enhancing’ pathogens. Why is the answer to this question not ‘zero dollars’?” he wrote on X.
The Biden DOD has lost track of how much money it has given to Chinese laboratories for 'enhancing' pathogens. Why is the answer to this question not "zero dollars"? https://t.co/GfTYd3epEo
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) June 20, 2024
