• Since 2023, White Coat Waste Project (WCW) has been campaigning against the establishment of a dangerous bat virus lab at Colorado State University (CSU) in collaboration with infamous EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• EHA, initially responsible for supplying the lab with bats from Asia, was booted from the project following a federal funding suspension for its collaboration with the Wuhan animal lab
• A new WCW investigation reveals CSU’s lab just received an additional $2.3M from the NIH to continue the project without EcoHealth
• WCW has exposed CSU’s history of animal lab accidents and wasteful taxpayer-funded virus experiments on bats
• Congressman Paul Gosar has proposed legislation to cut taxpayer funding for the new CSU bat lab in the 2025 NIH spending bill
• WCW is on a mission to get the NIH out of the animal testing business

Last year, White Coat Waste Project (WCW) exposed how, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and State of Colorado, $13 million of taxpayers’ money was being wasted by Colorado State University (CSU) and Wuhan lab partner EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) to build a new lab at CSU and import hundreds of bats from Asia to establish a new breeding colony and infect them with deadly viruses, including COVID, Ebola and Nipah.

Following WCW’s campaigns and lobbying and a subsequent federal action, EcoHealth Alliance’s taxpayer funding was suspended, ending its role in the scheme to import bats from Asia and establish this menacing breeding colony on US soil.

The defunding of EHA from this dangerous taxpayer–funded project was a major victory for animals and taxpayers, and it is currently unclear how CSU will source its Asian bats without their help. However, we’ve now revealed that the NIH is still eager to move forward with the project minus EHA; and gave CSU an additional $2.3 million to do so just two months ago.

Through a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request to CSU, WCW obtained photos, videos, and other documents that provide new insight into the virus-hunting and bat experiments CSU has been conducting.

Working with deadly and highly contagious pathogens such as Zika, rabies, Nipah, and various coronavirus strains, CSU white coats have been infecting bats, watching them suffer through the painful infection, and killing any bats that survive the experiments.

Similar to white coats in Wuhan, they have genetically modified the coronavirus; creating three new strains of the virus and infecting 162 bats with the novel pathogen.

Documents obtained via CORA detail starvation protocols; where bats are forced into “nutritional stress” so that white coats can observe if malnourishment damages their immune system (as it does in humans and other species).

Establishing a research facility with such stark similarities to the Wuhan lab, suspected to be the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, is a grave danger to the American people as is. But even further, WCW’s investigation uncovered a long history of animal lab accidents at CSU’s existing facilities that have exposed staff to dangerous viruses and escalated the urgency to stop this project in its tracks.

In light of WCW’s investigation, U.S. Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona submitted an amendment to the NIH’s 2025 spending bill that would defund the specific grants supporting the new CSU bat lab. Congress will be considering the bill later this year.

Millions of tax dollars are currently fueling the establishment of this volatile hub of genetically modified bat viruses on US soil. WCW and disease experts are working to stop this reckless and wasteful spending.  

After what happened in Wuhan, is this how you want your money spent?

We still have time to block the completion of this deadly project. It’s time to hold the NIH accountable.