Following a lackluster response from the National Institutes of Health to an inquiry about government oversight of grant funds that ended up with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) made the following comment.
“While I appreciate finally receiving a response to questions I first posed to NIH in March, the answers don’t give me any confidence. The lack of a precise answer about what oversight was done and the circular reasoning about the apparently arbitrary definitions for what constitutes ‘gain of function’ research is very concerning, especially when we’re talking about American lives and taxpayer dollars ending up in the hands of researchers under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party. The only logical conclusion is little, if any, oversight took place, which undermines Dr. Fauci’s strong public support for the trustworthiness of PRC scientists. The federal government’s first mistake was placing so much trust in the hands of the communist Chinese regime. These aren’t acceptable practices and our government officials need to quickly smarten up. I intend to continue looking into the use of taxpayer money connected to the Wuhan lab, but American government officials need to learn a lesson here and aggressively scrutinize where grants are going.”
Full text of the NIH response to Grassley can be found HERE.
Grassley’s has spoken on the Senate floor twice about this problem, on June 8, 2021 and on July 27, 2021.
Original source can be found here.
