WASHINGTON – The Biden administration has halted the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s access to federal funding after the lab failed to provide documents about safety and security measures, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg News.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notified the Wuhan Institute on Monday of the suspension, and also told the lab it is seeking to debar it entirely, according to the memo.
It found, after a review that began in September, that the Chinese facility is not compliant with federal regulations.
The action guarantees that the institute will not receive any more federal funding, an HHS spokesman said in an e-mailed statement. The lab has not received money from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since July 2020.
Penalising the lab is the most drastic action the US has taken so far over its failure to share documentation on biosafety practices amid ongoing investigations into Covid-19’s origins.
The institute has become a flashpoint in discussions of how the pandemic, which has killed some seven million people, started, with some, including Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray, suspecting it could have originated in the facility.
Though the US has not found any conclusive evidence that the virus emerged either through animal-to-human transmission or a lab accident, it has identified significant breaches in safety and security protocol at the Wuhan Institute.
The US has also accused China and the lab of stonewalling investigations into those shortcomings.
In 2014, the NIH awarded a grant to EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based organisation focused on preventing infectious diseases, for “understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence”.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology received a sub-award of that grant.
EcoHealth Alliance also funnelled US Agency for International Development funds to the lab.
Earlier in 2023, HHS’s Office of Inspector-General conducted an audit that determined that the NIH and EcoHealth Alliance did not effectively monitor awards and sub-awards, limiting their ability to understand the nature of research conducted and identify problem areas.
The institute’s leadership has not yet responded to the US government since its decision to make the lab ineligible for future federal awards, including new contracts, grants and other transactions, the HHS spokesman said.
The lab will not be able to conduct any business with the US as an agent or representative of others, and its affiliation with any organisation that does business with the federal government will also be carefully examined.
The Wuhan lab can, however, contest the suspension and proposed debarment.
An HHS debarment is a relatively rare event: The agency debarred 15 entities in 2020, according to its most recent public report on the actions.
The HHS reached its decision to suspend and potentially debar the lab independently of the US intelligence community, which has long been investigating the novel coronavirus’ emergence in Wuhan in late 2019.
In June, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report that identified safety and security issues at the institute that could have increased the risk of accidental exposure to viruses. Still, the intelligence community said it is not aware of a specific biosafety incident that may have spurred the pandemic.
That report came months after US President Joe Biden signed a Bill into law requiring declassification of intelligence related to the pandemic’s potential links to the lab. BLOOMBERG
