Did the NIAID Fund Research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

Understanding contradictory claims from Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci.

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During a Senate hearing on May 11, Sen. Rand Paul questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about whether the United States had provided funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Fauci responded that “We do not send money now to the Wuhan Virology Institute.”

“We did under your tutelage,” said Paul. “We were sending it through EcoHealth. It was a sub-agency and a sub-grant.”

As noted in a fact check from last July, Paul is correct on this point: While the Wuhan Institute of Virology did not receive a direct grant from NIAID, the organization Fauci heads up did provide a five-year grant in 2014 for research into “the risk of bat coronavirus emergence” to EcoHealth, a nongovernmental research group. EcoHealth was granted $3.7 million over those five years, of which about $600,000 went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Fauci went on to claim that “We have not funded gain-of-function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    Well this got re-upped on Twitter.

    All I can add is from months ago:

    Anyone thinking Gain of Function research done in a totalitarian/communist country was/is a good idea is….

    Not the person we should have leading anything.

    Remove Fauci.

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    Carolyn

    Does this mean that Paul's request for a criminal referral of Fauci is in order?

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      Tara Joyce

      I’m just wondering if you actually read the article?

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        Carolyn

        Every word of it, yes.

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    Xaveria

    OK, so, I feel bad.

    I don't know anything about cicadas. But when I lived in Africa, we ate locusts, and tell you what. Deep fried, with a pepper sauce? Totally delicious. Like the richest potato chips I'd ever had. I know it's only supposed to be the evil left that want to make you eat bugs, and I get the ick. But I used to feel that way about sushi, I remember.

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  4. Steve

    The reporting here is incomplete, and the fact check three of five stars. We need to know the grant language along with its administration protocols. Grants and contracts distribute authority along with money according to language in the grant/contract documents.

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    Stephanie

    This was an excellent fact check, going deep into the weeds on a subject in which none of us has expertise.

    For a fact check about a pretty minor point (and which ONLY concluded that both Fauci and Paul were right) and did not conclude anything else--I am looking right at the last paragraph--it looks like many commenters have gone way out over their skis.

    I am going to refer to a statement put out very recently by a large group of scientists who ARE qualified to opine, published in the journal Science, which is one of the best. I would rather go by what they say about the issue (whether there's enough evidence to draw conclusions as to the origin of the virus. Spoiler: they say no.).

    I cut some verbiage out but put the link at the end.



    ". . .Yet more investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic. Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks.

    "In May 2020, the World Health Assembly requested that the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general work closely with partners to determine the origins of SARS-CoV-2 (2). . . .Although there were no findings in clear support of either a natural spillover or a lab accident, the team assessed a zoonotic spillover from an intermediate host as “likely to very likely,” and a laboratory incident as “extremely unlikely” [(4), p. 9].

    "Furthermore, the two theories were not given balanced consideration. Only 4 of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident (4).

    "Notably, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus commented that the report's consideration of evidence supporting a laboratory accident was insufficient and offered to provide additional resources to fully evaluate the possibility (5).

    "As scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general (5), the United States and 13 other countries (6), and the European Union (7) that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve.

    "We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data.

    ". . .Investigators should document the veracity and provenance of data from which analyses are conducted and conclusions drawn, so that analyses are reproducible by independent experts.

    "Finally, in this time of unfortunate anti-Asian sentiment in some countries, we note that at the beginning of the pandemic, it was Chinese doctors, scientists, journalists, and citizens who shared with the world crucial information about the spread of the virus—often at great personal cost (8, 9). We should show the same determination in promoting a dispassionate science-based discourse on this difficult but important issue."

    https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1

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    1. Avatar photo
      Aylene Wright

      To clarify my own take; I am not in the "it was DEFINITELY a lab leak and it's obvious that the CCP covered it up" camp. And I am certainly not in the "it was DEFINITELY a lab leak and not only the CCP but the WHO and the US Public Health Establishment are all actively engaged in a coverup because they were all complicit" conspiracy theory believer camp.

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        Stephanie

        I never had any doubt of that : )

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    Richard Ramirez

    This article was very helpful! Thanks for providing us the information.

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  7. tla

    The problem is that these open door hearings are intended to generate sound bites rather than find facts. It puts people testifying like Fauci in the unenviable position either stammering on the minutiae of the details that is then clipped and blasted on the appropriate partisan channels or delivering definitive responses that shut down actual investigative inquiry.

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    Pat Riot

    Major countries besides China play with viruses all over the world, including the US. As such, probably a lot of what you will hear with respect to China is officials afraid to throw stones in glass houses. In other words, if they were to sanction China for not having sufficient safeguards in place we would need to ensure that *we* have those safeguards as well.

    And that means that we need *international standards* for safety which would require collaboration with many countries to arrive at something everybody agrees on. And oh yeah, we'd need to *engage* in China to do this and not do... whatever Rand Paul thinks we should do (bomb them? fine them?).

    Yet another chapter of, "Complex Problems Don't Demagogue Very Well"...

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    Victor Clairmont

    Good fact check.

    I am with the lab leak hypothesis and have been since last year. I am not on board with the intentionally leaking idea but it happened accidentally. If the CCP has blocked serious investigation for over a year and a half now, people are going to naturally conclude nefarious schemes. That’s on China, not on us.

    What is not helpful is Dr Fauci either not answering the questions asked of him, or spinning the information in a way that makes his pronouncements on Covid seem political.

    Fauci has been sadly, doing a bad job. And every day that goes by he shows himself to be giving the news with a big goverment slant, rather than just being the US Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medically Advisor to the President and remaining politically neutral.

    At this point, I will not try to defend the guy, because there isn’t much I can defend. He’s just been wrong with his advice on shutdowns or reopenings, mask or not masking, double masking, wearing a mask when vaccinated (no, if you get the vaccine you are not spreading Covid) being fine with the pause on the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, that then led to a very real drop in people wanting to get vaccinated, and the list goes on.

    He should be removed and someone else needs to take his place now. Trust in the CDC is plummeting as polarization grips the nation. I am afraid Fauci will not be the one to rebuild that trust.

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  10. Michael Hartley

    Thank you, Alec, for:
    1. Acquiring a layman's understanding of the science behind the controversy to write knowledgably about it. No small accomplishment.
    2. Meticulous fairness to the parties concerned.
    3. Explaining that Robert Kessler's differentiation among the viruses is, when it comes to human health, a distinction without a difference.

    Dr Fauci's answer that "We do not send money now to the Wuhan Virology Institute" is, in light of the fact check, not satisfactory. NIAID's indirect relationship through EcoHealth with WIV was, in the words of the song, "too close for comfort."

    But I accept him at his word when he says that he, along with so many others, is "fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China."

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