In New Report, Select Subcommittee Democrats Reveal Potential Misrepresentations by EcoHealth Alliance to NIAID and Federal Investigators Regarding Compliance with Administrative Requirements and Scientific Work

Washington, D.C. (May 1, 2024)—Today, Rep. Raul Ruiz, M.D., Ranking Member of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, released a new staff report ahead of the Select Subcommittee’s hearing with Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance (EHA).  Today’s staff report is based on internal documents and testimony provided to the Select Subcommittee revealing possible misconduct by Dr. Peter Daszak and EHA—which received federal funds for its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)—in their engagement with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). 

“As Ranking Member of the Select Subcommittee, I have kept an open mind about how the pandemic started because understanding whether the novel coronavirus emerged from a lab or from nature is essential to better preventing and preparing for future public health threats and to better protecting the American people.  But instead of objectively examining the various potential pathways for the pandemic’s origins, Select Subcommittee Republicans have spent fourteen months relentlessly probing the relationship between the federal government and our nation’s scientific community to prove their accusations that Dr. Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance created the COVID-19 pandemic through research funded by our public health agencies.

“Nearly half a million pages of internal documents and 19 transcribed interviews provided to the Select Subcommittee have refuted these extreme allegations.  Nevertheless, while this probe has not meaningfully advanced our understanding of the pandemic’s origins, transparent and forthcoming communication with federal government agencies is expected at all times.  Internal documents and testimony do suggest that Dr. Daszak and EHA potentially misled federal government on multiple occasions in both their transparency obligations and reporting requirements as recipients of federal grant funding—raising serious questions about their overall commitment to the responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars,” said Ranking Member Ruiz.

Select Subcommittee Republicans have accused Dr. Daszak and EHA of creating the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, but those allegations are not supported by the evidence collected by the Select Subcommittee.  The viruses studied under EHA’s NIAID grant and WIV subaward are too genetically distant from SARS-COV-2 to have caused the pandemic.  Select Subcommittee Republicans have failed to demonstrate that any of the viruses involved in EHA’s subaward to WIV could even possibly have been a progenitor virus to SARS-CoV-2.

However, internal documents and testimony provided to the Select Subcommittee over the past fourteen months do suggest that Dr. Daszak and EHA engaged in questionable conduct that raises legitimate concerns about their professional integrity.

• For instance, NIH grantees are required to submit Annual Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPRs) summarizing their work.  EHA submitted their Year 5 report that was due in 2019 more than two years late, and there is evidence indicating that EHA was possibly untruthful about their delay.
• Documents suggest that Dr. Daszak may have failed to adequately monitor virus growth in WIV’s experiments and may have also failed to notify NIAID that the WIV viruses appeared to grow beyond permissible thresholds under his grant’s terms and conditions. 

The report’s findings raise legitimate concerns about the professional integrity of Dr. Daszak and EHA, leading Select Subcommittee Democrats to call into question EHA’s federal grantee status.

While the Select Subcommittee’s probe has uncovered conduct that raises questions about Dr. Daszak’s commitment to transparency and professional integrity, it has not substantiated allegations that EHA used taxpayer dollars to fund research that sparked the COVID-19 pandemic.  Throughout the 118th Congress, Select Subcommittee Republicans have weaponized concerns about a lab-related origin in what has appeared to be an effort to fuel sentiment against our nation’s scientists and public health officials for partisan gain, without uncovering the truth for the American people.

Click here to read the full report.

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