Where Are The Wuhan Subpoenas?

Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan / Reuters. Chinese stonewalling means it’s unlikely the world...

Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan / Reuters.

Chinese stonewalling means it’s unlikely the world will ever know Covid-19’s exact origins. Yet many avenues of the investigation remain unexplored that could yield lessons for the future. Until this year much of the political and scientific establishment wrote off the idea that Covid-19 began circulating in China after an accidental lab leak. This groupthink was inexcusable, given that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for years had studied and modified bat coronaviruses.

Hundreds of pages of documents have shown how the U.S. nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance received funding from the National Institutes of Health to work with the WIV. A grant in 2014 gave the Chinese institution some $600,000 for “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” New developments have strengthened the already solid case for a Congressional investigation.

Last week House Oversight Committee Republicans released an NIH letter they said confirmed “EcoHealth and the WIV conducted GOF research on bat coronaviruses.” (GOF means gain-of-function research, which can make viruses more deadly or infectious.) The following day the Intercept, a left-leaning digital publication, wrote that annual grant reports showed that EcoHealth and WIV “were engaged in risky experiments and that the NIH may not have been fully aware of these activities.”

Anthony Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins have insisted that their organizations didn’t fund gain-of-function research, which was banned in the U.S. from 2014-2017. Dr. Fauci has spoken to Congress this year and remains firm, likely betting that his de facto affiliation with Democrats shields him from real scrutiny. But Americans deserve to know whether taxpayer dollars funded risky research that could have started a pandemic.

The intelligence community’s 90-day Covid-19 origins review was a muddle. The Chinese Communist Party has done everything it can to thwart a real investigation. The World Health Organization’s efforts have been undermined by conflicts of interest. EcoHealth Alliance chief Peter Daszak was appointed to the expert group that visited China this year, and several proposed members for the new Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens have conflicts as well.

“EcoHealth Alliance must be held accountable for lying to the federal government about what exactly they were using American taxpayer money for,” Rep. Michael McCaul said this week, reiterating his call for Mr. Daszak to be subpoenaed. Mr. Daszak has publicly dismissed the lab-leak theory while organizing scientists behind the scenes to rally against it. He and key subordinates should share all documents related to the WIV and speak under oath about their work.

This should be followed by a comprehensive investigation into the federal process that led to Mr. Daszak’s outfit and the WIV being rewarded taxpayer dollars. So far Democrats don’t seem interested, perhaps because the populist right has made this a cause. It’s scandalous that Congress isn’t using its power to do more, and Republicans should make this a campaign issue.