Fauci led push for research at Wuhan Institute of Virology

The scale of US support for experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is more extensive than Anthony Fauci has indicated to congress.

Anthony Fauci’s organisation was very familiar with the work undertaken at the Wuhan lab. Pciture: AFP

Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Health and other US agencies funded 65 scientific projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology over the past decade, many involving risky research on bat coronaviruses, an investigation has revealed.

The analysis of the Wuhan institute’s research has shown that the scale of US support for scientific experiments is more extensive than Dr Fauci has indicated to congress.

The American funding was flowing through to the Wuhan lab, which houses the world’s largest collection of coronavirus samples, even when “gain-of-function” research was banned in the US. (Gain-of-function research genetically alters an organism in a way that may enhance the biological functions of gene products.)

The revelations are contained in a soon-to-be-released book, What Really Happened in Wuhan, which also reveals that senior White House officials including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, ex-health secretary Alex Azar and former national security adviser Robert O’Brien were unaware the Obama-era ban on gain-of-function research had been lifted by Dr Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser.

The P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province. Picture: AFP

On December 19, 2017, the NIH announced it would resume funding gain-of-function research involving MERS, SARS, coronaviruses and influenza after a new “framework” had been developed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I was in meeting after meeting with Dr Fauci, and that never came up,” Mr O’Brien says in the book. “I don’t know if he alerted anyone. I never heard about it until I was out of office.”

Mr Pompeo, who was director of the CIA from 2017-18, said he did not know if Dr Fauci sought permission from anyone to re-start the dangerous research, particularly with regard to contributing funding via sub-grants to the Wuhan ­institute.

Dr Fauci did not inform his boss, Mr Azar, who only found out the US restriction on gain-of-function research had been lifted from media reports this year.

Dr Fauci’s organisation was very familiar with the work undertaken at the Wuhan lab, with the NIH and the National ­Science Foundation visiting the centre in the year before April 2018.

In total, the NIH has funded at least 60 scientific projects at the Wuhan institute over the past decade, according to the analysis of scientific papers done by The Australian in conjunction with US bipartisan taxpayer watchdog group White Coat Waste Project.

USAID, the federal aid agency, funded at least 16 projects (10 of which were jointly funded with the NIH), the Department of Health and Human Services funded three, the Department of ­Defence, Department of Energy, and the China-US Collaborative Program on Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases each funded one project in conjunction with the Wuhan institute.

Other institutions that frequently collaborate with the institute include the New York Blood Centre, the University of North Carolina and University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

Students at the opening ceremony on the first day of the new semester in Wuhan last week. Picture: AFP

White Coat Waste Project president Anthony Bellotti said the NIH and other agencies should never have funded these experiments in China.

“Shipping millions of US tax dollars to the dangerous Wuhan animal lab and dozens of other ­facilities in China where there’s no real transparency and accountability about how the money is spent is a recipe for disaster,” he said.

“Taxpayers should not be forced to bankroll this reckless spending and new polls show that a majority of Democrat and ­Republican voters in the US want to cut funding for animal labs in China and other foreign countries.”

The Wuhan Institute of ­Virology is the laboratory under ­investigation by intelligence agencies for potentially leaking SARS-CoV-2 and causing the global pandemic.

The concern about gain-of-function research causing a pandemic or being used for bio-terrorism led to its ban under the Obama administration in 2014.

Dr Fauci has fronted congress denying America funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan and has described the research as a “a very minor collaboration, as part of a subcontract of a grant, we had a collaboration with some Chinese scientists”.

What Really Happened in Wuhan by Sharri Markson will be published worldwide on September 29. Pre-order from Booktopia

What Really Happened in Wuhan, the documentary featuring Sharri Markson’s interview with Donald Trump, premieres on Sky News Australia on Monday September 20 at 8pm AEST.