• White Coat Waste Project (WCW) has exposed how the USDA has wasted $1 million to collaborate on dangerous bird flu gain-of-function experiments with a Wuhan animal lab white coat tied to the Chinese government
• The USDA-CCP collaboration is conducting cruel animal experiments to create new deadly bird flu strains that may jump to mammals
• Citing WCW’s new investigation, US Senator Joni Ernst is demanding answers in a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack
• WCW previously exposed taxpayer funding for gain-of-function experiments on humanized mice in Wuhan and the USDA’s spending spree on dog and cat meat at Chinese wet markets

Shipping tax dollars to animal abusers in China is a recipe for disaster. But, even after what the White Coat Waste Project exposed at the Wuhan animal lab, Uncle Sam still hasn’t learned his lesson.

WCW investigators and Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) have now uncovered how the U.S. Department of Agriculture has wasted at least $1 million of taxpayers’ money on an ongoing collaboration with the CCP-run Chinese Academy of Sciences (the Wuhan animal lab’s parent organization) and a Wuhan lab white coat to see if they can make “highly pathogenic avian influenza” more contagious to mammals in cruel and dangerous gain-of-function experiments.

Government records uncovered by WCW show the taxpayer-funded USDA-CCP collaboration is currently scheduled to be funded through 2026. It involves experiments that use the gain-of-function technique of repeatedly infecting ducks, geese, quail, and other animals with wild bird flu viruses to force the pathogens to evolve into unnatural lab-created strains and study their “potential to jump into mammalian hosts.”

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack stated the USDA’s project with the Chinese Academy of Sciences “is not a collaboration per se” yet the USDA website says otherwise.

Why are they still working with the Chinese government on risky virus research when it has violated U.S. grant and… pic.twitter.com/fc8B2HdIWT

— Congressman Ben Cline (@RepBenCline) March 21, 2024

The specific bird flu viruses being experimented on (H5NX, H7N9, and H9N2) are dangerous to humans and have already caused deadly outbreaks. 

The main collaborators on the project are USDA’s Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, the CCP-run Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute (a Wuhan lab partner). 

The photo of animal experimenters above is from inside the USDA lab that is working with Chinese government white coats on dangerous bird flu gain-of-function tests

Alarmingly, the lead Chinese animal experimenter on the USDA project is a Deputy Director at a CCP-run virus lab and is affiliated with the Wuhan animal lab that likely caused COVID and covered it up.

Citing our new investigation, Senate Agriculture Committee member Joni Ernst raised concerns in a new letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack that these animal experiments constitute “gain-of-function” tests that supercharge natural viruses to make them more contagious and deadly to humans and cause lab accidents and pandemics.

Sen. Ernst’s letter demands details about USDA spending in China and Russia and also cites WCW’s Worldwide Waste investigations of USDA’s Kitten Slaughterhouse, Putin’s cat lab and “experimental fur farm,” and other animal labs in adversarial nations.

In 2018, our Kitten Slaughterhouse investigation uncovered and ended a disgusting USDA project that involved purchasing dog and cat meat from filthy wet markets in China and force-feeding it to kittens back in a Maryland lab.

Then, in 2020, WCW first exposed dangerous taxpayer-funded gain-of-function experiments on humanized mice at a Chinese Communist Party-run lab in Wuhan that experts believe infected Patient Zero and caused the COVID pandemic. 

 We’re urging Congress to include defund language in the forthcoming Farm Bill to ensure not another red cent of taxpayers’ money is shipped to unaccountable animal labs in China.