Sen. Roger Marshall is calling for the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate all US taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research in China, as well as any undisclosed pathogen and biospecimen collections that may help uncover the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Marshall has written a letter to Department of Defense Inspector General Robert Storch to expand the current investigation into over $50 million in Pentagon grants that Chinese institutions received for pandemic pathogen research between 2014 and 2023. This move follows an initial investigation conducted by Marshall’s office, which revealed that the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases purchased lab samples secretly from Chinese entities between 2014 and 2020.
The samples purchased by the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases include potentially fatal pathogens such as Ebola and the Marburg virus, and originated from the University of California, Davis, and the EcoHealth Alliance, both of which used millions of taxpayer dollars to assist China in pandemic pathogen collection and research. This research was conducted at various Chinese institutions, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuhan University, and the Chinese Academies of Science Institute of Microbiology. Marshall believes that data about these biospecimens could provide forensic clues to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sen. Joni Ernst and Rep. Mike Gallagher initially requested the Defense Department’s inspector general to conduct an audit of Chinese pandemic pathogen research grants in January. This request was approved as part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, and Inspector General Storch has since launched an investigation into the matter. Recent revelations by National Institutes of Health principal deputy director Lawrence Tabak and EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak have confirmed that US taxpayers funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. EcoHealth Alliance had its federal grant funding pulled for submitting late reports on Wuhan experiments and violating biosafety protocols for research with SARS and MERS viruses.
While the exact origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus remains uncertain, many scientists, former public health officials, and federal agencies consider the lab leak hypothesis to be the most likely explanation for the COVID-19 pandemic that began in Wuhan in 2019. The Pentagon’s investigation into US taxpayer-funded research in China aims to uncover any information that may shed light on the origins of the virus. Sen. Marshall is urging full transparency in revealing details related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the dangerous pathogen research that was funded in China. This call for investigation comes at a time of increased scrutiny and debate surrounding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of gain-of-function research in potentially contributing to its emergence.
