On Tuesday, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) introduced the Stop the Outlay of Payments (STOP) Act, a bill that will deny taxpayer funding from organizations not properly transparent about their projects. The legislation will effectively serve to provide accountability and enforcement, to protect taxpayers from groups like the EcoHealth Alliance, an NIH grant recipient which has not been forthcoming about what it does with funds.
"Under the STOP Act, grant recipients have 120 days to come into compliance after being suspended and can continue to receive support from other grants if an agreement has been made to resolve the suspension of the grant," explains a press release from Sen. Ernst's office.
While the legislation itself does not single EcoHealth out by name, the press release did not mince words:
When NIH requested information about the U.S. tax dollars diverted to the Wuhan lab and the viruses being studied and safety conditions there, EcoHealth called the questioning “inappropriate” and “heinous.” They even orchestrated an effort to taint the scientific investigation, calling the idea of a lab leak a “conspiracy theory.”
In July 2020, when EcoHealth refused to answer these basic questions, NIH suspended its grant to EcoHealth until the information requested was provided. Despite stonewalling the agency, the very next month NIH awarded EcoHealth a $7.5 million grant. EcoHealth has also including more than $5 million from the Department of Defense since July 2020.
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“Despite skirting federal law and refusing to disclose how much U.S. taxpayer money was funneled to Communist China’s Wuhan Institute and the details about the coronavirus research the funding supported, EcoHealth Alliance was rewarded with another $7.5 million. Iowa taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for any organization that fails to comply with federal law. My bill would prevent federal funding from going to organizations, like EcoHealth, until they provide answers on how and where taxpayer dollars are being spent,” said Senator Ernst.
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Townhall has consistently reported on the close relationship revealed to be between EcoHealth Alliance's CEO, Peter Daszak, and Dr. Anthony Fauci. In an email thread from April 2020, Daszak thanked Dr. Fauci for his dismissal of the theory that the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab.
Grants provided to the EcoHealth Alliance have gone on to fund the Wuhan lab. Daszak then went on to be the only American allowed to be part of the WHO's investigation into China to do with theories of the origin. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) has been particularly concerned about such a connection.
The introduction of such legislation corresponds with Sen. Ernst awarding the June 2021 Squeal Award to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), for "failing to take EcoHealth's refusal to cooperate with the investigation into the origins of COVID-19 seriously." As the announcement notes, "To find the truth about COVID-19, we need to follow the science and the money."
The announcement, with original emphasis, further warns:
NIH gave the money to a New York nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance, which then funneled the U.S. taxpayer dollars into the state-run lab in China.
How much? NIH claims it was $600,000, but internal emails reveal the amount may have been much more.
And what was this money used for? The collection and analysis of coronavirus samples.
That means EcoHealth Alliance may have in its possession some of the coronaviruses from the Wuhan Institute…the same ones researchers previously reported were potentially infectious to humans.
When NIH requested information about a virus sample and the U.S. tax dollars diverted to the Wuhan lab, EcoHealth called the questioning “inappropriate” and “heinous.” They even orchestrated an effort to taint the scientific investigation, calling the idea of a lab leak a “conspiracy theory.”
In July 2020, when EcoHealth refused to answer these basic questions, NIH suspended its grant to EcoHealth until the information requested was provided.
Smart move, right?
Well, not so fast...the next month NIH awarded the same group a $7.5 million grant.
EcoHealth Alliance is violating multiple federal laws that require the group to report the amount of taxpayer money provided to the Wuhan lab and disclose how that money was spent, and instead of facing reprisals for withholding what could be key scientific evidence into the beginnings of the pandemic, NIH is rewarding the group.
And get this, NIH isn’t the only federal agency subsidizing EcoHealth!
The group has collected more than $60 million in taxpayer dollars from other government agencies, including more than $5 million from the Department of Defense since July 2020.
Also on Tuesday, news came out that the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health & Human Services is auditing NIH's selection of grants.
As CNN reported:
"We share stakeholders' concerns regarding compliance and oversight of NIH grant funds. We have been monitoring this issue for some time and consider it a high-priority matter that can pose a threat to the integrity of the NIH grant program," Tesia Williams, the director of communications for the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, told CNN."Based on our preliminary research and analysis, HHS-OIG has decided to conduct an extensive audit reviewing how NIH monitored selected grants and how the grantees and subgrantees used and managed federal funds between years 2014 through 2021," Williams said.
White Coat Waste Project, a bipartisan group which exposes taxpayer funded animal experiments, has been leading efforts to defund the Wuhan lab. In a letter dated March 15, 2021, Daniel Lopez, the group's research manager, contacted Deborah Kearse, the Director at the Division of Program Integrity at NIH. Sen. Ernst is cc'ed in the letter.
As the letter underscores, with original emphasis:
Virtually all of EHA's press releases reporting its taxpayer-funded experiments over the last three years violate the Stevens Amendment. The releases fail to acknowledge federal funding, and/or fail to report the amount of taxpayer money spent, and/or fail to report the percentage of the project paid for with taxpayer funds.
There is hope that the bill will be bipartisan, especially since the amendment Sen. Ernst introduced to the Endless Frontier Act received unanimous support. Her amendment bans any future funding from the United States from going towards China's state-run labs. An amendment from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), which also passed unanimously, defunds gain of function research in China.
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