WASHINGTON – Following reports of numerous undisclosed biolab accidents, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and her colleagues are demanding the White House reinstate a government-wide ban on all ongoing and new viral Gain-of-Function (GoF) and Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) studies—when diseases are manipulated to become more deadly or infectious—which may have increased transmissibility of a coronavirus pathogen during experiments at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
Taxpayers entrust NIH with tens of billions of dollars every year in the hopes ofdiscovering cures, not creating dangerous new diseases. These risky experiments are even more concerning now that we know accidents are happening in the most highly secure labs, and NIH is not fully aware of what is happening in the studies it is sponsoring.
“The NIH still can’t answer questions about the dangerous experiments with coronaviruses that Dr. Fauci was funding in China’s Wuhan Institute, and the agency wasn’t even aware it was sponsoring risky research enhancing coronaviruses at Boston University,” said Ernst. “What other dangerous studies are being funded by NIH and other government agencies, and where are those occurring? We need answers now. Until we know, and measures are put in place to guarantee safety and transparency, it is imperative that a moratorium be enacted immediately on this risky research.”
In a letter addressed to White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Ernst and her colleagues detailed their concerns about the ambiguity of the existing guidelines for this dangerous research. The senators also pointed to recent examples of GoF and DURC projects in the United States that were sponsored by NIH and could contribute to another pandemic if a laboratory accident occurs. Under the Obama-Biden administration there was a government-wide ban on GoF and DURC studies involving dangerous pathogens.
Read the letter below:
Marshall.OSTP_.ltr_.11.22.2022
