Joni Ernst Calls on Biden Admin to Confirm EcoHealth Ban

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, on Thursday called on the Biden administration to confirm that no more taxpayer money will go to the group EcoHealth Alliance due to its connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The Department of Health and Human Services previously announced that it would prevent EcoHealth Alliance from accessing federal funds after an investigation by the HHS Office of the Inspector General determined that the group "lacks the present responsibility to participate in United States Federal Government procurement and nonprocurement programs."

On Thursday, Ernst sent letters to the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, demanding that they confirm the "suspension of all funding to" EcoHealth Alliance, as well as to provide a list of "funding vehicles" that support the group with taxpayer money.

The senator also demanded that the agencies provide "assurance of access to and retention of all project data, including sequencing of bat viruses and other dangerous pathogens EHA collected or created with taxpayer dollars."

Ernst previously requested that the NIH and NSF cease providing funds to the group and has introduced legislation to prohibit further taxpayer funds from going to EcoHealth Alliance.

"Despite repeated requests from NIH, EHA never provided laboratory notebooks and files from the taxpayer-funded research conducted on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which could hold vital clues to understanding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic," Ernst wrote in the letters.

"All information related to EHA's current experiments not currently in your custody needs to be collected and every precaution should be taken to ensure the pathogens in the group's possession are documented and prevented from leaking," she added. "What happened in Wuhan should never be allowed to happen anywhere else ever again."

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