• Citing WCW investigations, Congress is demanding answers from federal agencies about the $50 million of taxpayers’ money that’s been shipped to EcoHealth Alliance for virus-hunting and risky animal experiments since the pandemic (that it likely caused!) started.
• Rep. Paul Gosar’s (R-AZ) letters to the NIH, NSF, Pentagon, and USAID state: “EHA does not deserve any taxpayer support after what happened in Wuhan and its years of empty promises of predicting and preventing pandemics and instead probably causing one.”
• The letters mention WCW’s recent exposé of how NIH has spent $8 million so far to help EcoHealth build a new bat lab on US soil and import hundreds of bats from Asia to establish a new breeding colony for experiments with deadly viruses including Ebola, Nipah, and strains of COVID.
• In early 2020, WCW was the first group to expose how EcoHealth shipped taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan animal lab for gain-of-function experiments that experts believe sparked the COVID pandemic.

In early 2020, the White Coat Waste Project (WCW) was the very first group to expose how EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) recklessly shipped taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan animal lab for gain-of-function experiments that experts believe sparked the COVID pandemic. We also documented how EHA has repeatedly violated federal spending transparency law, and its been busted for breaking NIH grant rules in Wuhan and misusing taxpayer dollars.

Photo of a bat being used for cruel and wasteful experiments by EcoHealth Alliance white coats.

Yet, late last month, we uncovered how the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has recently paid over $8 million in tax dollars so far for EHA and Wuhan-linked Colorado State University (CSU) white coats to build a new US bat colony and experimentation lab on U.S. soil. For the project, EcoHealth will import hundreds of bats from Asia to establish a new breeding colony at CSU and infect them with deadly viruses including Ebola, Nipah, and strains of COVID in cruel and wasteful experiments.

Now, citing this and other WCW investigations showing how EcoHealth has pulled in $50 million of taxpayer’ money since the pandemic (that it likely caused!) started, Congress is demanding answers.

In letters fired off this morning to new NIH Director Bertagnolli, and the heads of other agencies funding EcoHealth including the Pentagon, National Science Foundation, and U.S. Agency for International Development, Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) writes: “EHA does not deserve any taxpayer support after what happened in Wuhan and its years of empty promises of predicting and preventing pandemics and instead probably causing one.”

The letters demand information from the NIH, Pentagon, NSF and USAID about their past and active funding of EcoHealth, including funding for gain-of-function experiments.

Federal funding for controversial nonprofit restricted in annual defense bill. The restrains, though, are narrower than those imposed in earlier versions of the bill. pic.twitter.com/c2PEn7alBb

— Rich Edson (@RichEdsonDC) December 8, 2023

As the letters note—and we highlighted in a recent op-ed—the House recently passed Rep. Gosar’s amendment to the 2024 NIH spending bill to defund several active EcoHealth grants, including the one that funded gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan animal lab and another for “bat coronavirus hunting in Asia and lab research with “humanized mice.””

As a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Rep. Gosar has particular authority to hold federal bureaucrats accountable for recklessly wasting tax dollars to fund EcoHealth.

Rep. Gosar has been working with us since early 2020 to defund EcoHealth and the Wuhan lab.

We agree with Rep. Gosar that EcoHealth shouldn’t get another red cent of taxpayers’ money and are grateful for his leadership!