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

Understanding contradictory claims from Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci.

By
81

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.”

Gain-of-function research examines how viruses could become deadlier and more viral. The purpose of this research is to prevent potentially catastrophic strains of viruses by developing therapeutics to treat and block the virus. Paul suggested in the hearing that COVID-19 may have been the result of such research with bat coronaviruses in China.

Gain-of-function research is controversial given the inherent dangers of enhancing viruses’ transmissibility and deadliness, and government funding of new gain-of-function projects was paused on October 16, 2014, five months after EcoHealth’s grant was approved. Guidelines issued by the Trump administration in December 2017 ended the moratorium on gain-of-function research. 

While Fauci, EcoHealth Alliance, and the National Institutes of Health all told PolitiFact in February that the EcoHealth funds directed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology did not go to gain-of-function research, PolitiFact also noted that a paper published thanks to those funds described gain-of-function research techniques.

Reporting from the Washington Post shows that funding from the NIAID went to an EcoHealth project carried out by the Wuhan Institute that involved creating novel coronaviruses to see how easily they could cross over from animal to human cells. Robert Kessler, communications manager for EcoHealth, denies that this research meets the definition of gain-of-function.

“So gain-of-function research refers specifically to the manipulation of human viruses so as to be either more easily transmissible or to cause worse infection or be easier spread,” Kessler told The Dispatch Fact Check in an interview. 

“So first of all, our work with those viruses in question, those are bat viruses, those are not human viruses,” said Kessler.

Gain-of-function research is  actually much broader than manipulating only human viruses. Gain-of-function research with avian flu and ferrets in 2011 prompted debate about the ethical concerns of gain-of-function, despite the fact that it wasn’t a “human” virus being manipulated. Viruses can make the leap from animals to humans, making such a distinction unnecessary in the course of conducting gain-of-function research with animal viruses. In the 2011 experiments, scientists created a strain of avian flu capable of spreading to ferrets, prompting concerns about it spreading to other mammals including humans. And in the case of the EcoHealth and the Wuhan Institute collaboration, the project was expressly meant to examine bat coronaviruses for the potential to cross over to human cells—the potential for human infection makes the fact that they were examining animal viruses moot. The 2014 rule change about gain-of-function research restricted projects “that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route.” Whether or not those viruses started with humans or animals was irrelevant.

Kessler also stated that the research underwritten by EcoHealth at the Wuhan Institute of Virology involved genomic sequencing of bat viruses, not the creation of actual viruses. He explained that coronaviruses are easy to study because of their predictability in how they bond to human cells. The virus that causes the COVID-19 disease is SARS-CoV-2, which Kessler said “has a spike protein on the [angiotensin-converting enzyme 2] ACE2 receptor, which is what allows it to bind to human cells.” He gave this as an example of the type of research performed in the EcoHealth/Wuhan project, as the ACE2 receptor can be seen in genomic sequencing of the virus, allowing scientists to easily determine if that virus would be transmissible to humans given coronaviruses’ predictable bonding process. 

“What you do is if you take that genomic structure or a virus—let’s say it does not have an A2 receptor—if you bind a known sequence of a receptor that can bind by proteins just to see if it would mutate and develop that what it could look like, you then have a quote, unquote ‘a chimeric virus,’ but it’s genomic data of a chimeric virus, it’s a hypothetical virus. And that sequencing can be provided to laboratories that do develop either antibody treatments, therapeutics, vaccines, you know, what have you,” Kessler told The Dispatch Fact Check. “You’re not creating a Frankenstein’s monster of a virus, but you’re making kind of a Frankenstein’s monster of a mapping of a virus. It’s more theory than it is reality.”

When asked if the Wuhan Institute of Virology was using this genomic mapping to create live viruses, Kessler stated: “With our collaboration, no it was not. I obviously don’t know everything that was happening at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In the interest of truth, I can’t give you a definitive answer to that question. But no, it was not a part of the collaboration that we had, specifically because it would not have been permitted from our funding from the NIH.”

Newsweek and the Washington Post both reported last year that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was engaging in gain-of-function research. Even if researchers weren’t doing so in their project with EcoHealth, it’s not known for what purposes the Wuhan Institute used the EcoHealth genomic mapping outside of their collaboration. 

In summation: Paul is correct that funds awarded to EcoHealth by the NIAID ended up being used for projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. While EcoHealth and the NIAID deny that their projects involved gain-of-function research, reporting indicates that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was engaging in such research. However, there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 is a result of such research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology or elsewhere. While the World Health Organization suggests that it is “extremely unlikely” the virus was manmade, this  has not been definitively confirmed, either. Fauci said during the hearing that he is “fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China.”

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.

81
By
Comments (81)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  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.

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Carolyn

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

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Tara Joyce

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

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Carolyn

        Every word of it, yes.

        Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    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.

    Collapse
  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.

    Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    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

    Collapse
    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.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Stephanie

        I never had any doubt of that : )

        Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Rramirez.2009

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

    Collapse
  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.

    Collapse
  8. Deleted Comment

    This comment has been deleted

  9. Avatar photo
    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.

    Collapse
  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."

    Collapse
Load More