The U.S. National Institutes of Health confirmed it cut off federal funds to a U.S. nonprofit organization that is studying how coronaviruses jump from bats to humans — an action taken as Trump administration officials accused a Chinese laboratory supported by the group of triggering the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The NIH declined to provide S&P Global Market Intelligence the agency's reasoning for abruptly terminating the grant awarded to New York-based EcoHealth Alliance and its sub-awardees — including the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China — stating it "does not discuss details of the decision-making process regarding specific grant awards."
The NIH said it had awarded EcoHealth $3.4 million over six years.
President Donald Trump told reporters April 30 he had seen information that gave him a high degree of confidence the Wuhan lab affiliated with EcoHealth was where the novel coronavirus originated, though he offered no evidence.
"I'm not allowed to tell you that," Trump said.
On ABC's "This Week" May 3, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said "there's enormous evidence" the Wuhan lab was where the virus began. Pompeo also did not offer any information linking the lab to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
In an April 30 statement, however, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, said the intelligence community "concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified."
The ODNI added that intelligence officials would "continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."
Trump told reporters April 17 he would end any grants going to the Wuhan lab — funds his administration had renewed in 2019.
In a statement, EcoHealth noted that it works around the world in countries where the threat of emerging diseases is highest and the need is the greatest.
"Viruses have no citizenship, no political affiliation," the organization stated.
It noted that the now-terminated NIH grant was aimed at analyzing the risk of coronavirus emergence and helping in the design of vaccines and drugs for COVID-19 and other related threats.
EcoHealth said its research had been reviewed by independent scientists, considered extremely high priority and met all four strategic research priorities the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, had laid out in late April.
"We stand by our work and by our mission," EcoHealth said.
Fauci blocked from testifying
Questions about the terminated EcoHealth grant were expected to be raised at a May 6 House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing, but a spokesman for the panel told S&P Global Market Intelligence the Trump administration had blocked NIAID Director Anthony Fauci from testifying at the session.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said it would be "counter-productive to have the very individuals involved" in the COVID-19 response appearing at congressional hearings.
But Fauci is expected to testify at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension's Committee May 12 hearing, a spokesman for the panel told S&P Global Market Intelligence. NIH Director Francis Collins is also slated to testify before that panel on May 7, where he may be asked about Rick Bright's abrupt removal as director of Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and transfer to the NIH to work on a COVID-19 tests project.
Trump seeks new HHS inspector general
Meanwhile, Trump revealed May 1 that he plans to nominate Jason Weida, an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston, to be the next inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Christi Grimm, a career government official, has been serving in an acting capacity as HHS inspector general since January.
After the HHS Office of Inspector General, or OIG, issued an April 6 report that said U.S. hospitals were experiencing severe and widespread shortages of COVID-19 testing materials, personal protective gear and other critical supplies, Trump criticized Grimm.
"Did I hear the word inspector general," Trump said from the White House. "It's wrong."
Trump later told reporters he thought the inspector general's report was based on Grimm's opinion and were not the results from the hospitals the OIG surveyed.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said Trump's nominee "must not get through the Senate without ironclad commitments to continue, without any political interference, the investigations that are currently underway."
"The president cannot be above oversight, no matter how he denies, attacks and fights against it," Murray said in a May 2 statement.