At Select Subcommittee Hearing, Democrats Debunk Extreme Claim That Federal Funding for EcoHealth Alliance Caused the COVID-19 Pandemic

Washington, D.C. (May 2, 2024)—Yesterday, Rep. Raul Ruiz, M.D., Ranking Member of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, led Select Subcommittee Democrats in undercutting Republicans’ extreme efforts to sow distrust in public health and presenting evidence that raises legitimate questions about EcoHealth Alliance’s (EHA’s) professional conduct.

“While the Select Subcommittee’s probe has uncovered questionable conduct about Dr. Daszak’s commitment to transparency and professional integrity, I want to be clear that it has not substantiated allegations that EcoHealth Alliance used taxpayer dollars to fund research that created the COVID-19 pandemic.  No evidence provided to the Select Subcommittee has indicated that the work performed under EcoHealth Alliance’s grant, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2,” said Ranking Member Ruiz in his opening statement.

Ahead of yesterday’s hearing—which included testimony from Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance—Select Subcommittee Democrats released a staff report detailing how Republicans have failed to substantiate their claims that federal funding awarded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to EHA is the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Select Subcommittee Democrats’ report also reveals findings from internal documents and communications that pertain to EHA’s failure to comply with reporting and transparency requirements for federal grantees and draw into question whether EHA should continue to receive taxpayer funding.

Select Subcommittee Democrats exposed how evidence provided to the Select Subcommittee does not substantiate Republicans’ claims linking federal funding for EHA to COVID-19’s origins.

• Ranking Member Ruiz highlighted the lengths to which Select Subcommittee Republicans have proved for evidence to substantiate their extreme claims regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic:  “We have pored over more than 425,000 pages of documents provided to us by HHS, the State Department, DOE, the Government Accountability Office, universities, and private citizens.  We have conducted more than one hundred hours of closed-door interviews with more than a dozen current and former federal officials and scientists.  And we have held multiple hearings—all in what has appeared to be an effort to weaponize concerns about a lab-related origin to fuel sentiment against our nation’s scientists and public health officials for partisan gain.”

• Rep. Debbie Dingell said:  “Throughout this investigation, my Republican colleagues have been trying to cast blame for the COVID-19 pandemic on Drs. Collins and Fauci.  And as we have seen time and time again, it's contrary to the evidence.  So now they are shifting the blame a wider swath of dedicated public servants at NIH and NIAID, based on the bad actions of a single grantee.  We should be holding today's witness accountable of which we have bipartisan agreement, but this should not distract us from our ultimate goal:  future pandemic preparedness.”

• In highlighting Select Subcommittee Republicans’ extreme claims regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rep. Robert Garcia said:  “We've had a member of even our own Subcommittee mention that Dr. Fauci was trying to, and I quote, ‘create a vaccine pandemic experiment, mandate a vaccine be developed from it and have the American taxpayers foot the bill.’”

Select Subcommittee Democrats detailed evidence that raises serious concerns about the professional conduct of Dr. Daszak and EHA.

• In examining Dr. Daszak’s failure to submit EHA’s Year 5 progress report in a timely manner, Rep. Deborah Ross said:  “You knew that there were difficulties.  You had previous experience doing this and making sure people got things.  And what I am saying is, when the taxpayers' money is used for scientific research, it is imperative that people comply with the rules.”

• Rep. Jill Tokuda pressed Dr. Daszak on representations he made to NIAID regarding access to samples and sequences at the Wuhan Institute of Virology:  “To state the obvious, having the Wuhan Institute of Virology send you electronic sequences through emails, as I recall through your testimony, is not the same thing as physically having the samples.  There's nothing stopping the Wuhan Institute of Virology from withholding certain sequences of particular interest or from manipulating sequence data for unknown purposes.”

• Rep. Dingell said:  “My Democratic colleagues and I want to emphasize the importance of transparency.  We believe in a full accounting of facts, and I believe we have been very fair with you.  We won't accuse you of creating COVID-19 because that's simply not what we can do with the available evidence.  It doesn’t demonstrate it.  And we will give you the opportunity to respond to allegations of Republican allegations that may not hold water.  But to the extent that you have considered misrepresenting facts or done so, we will consider that a very serious mistake.”

Select Subcommittee Democrats called out Republicans’ extreme efforts to sow distrust in public health and scientific research while ignoring the vital work of protecting the American people’s health and preparing for future pandemics.

• In distinguishing between findings regarding EHA’s misconduct and a legitimate evaluation of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins, Ranking Member Ruiz said:  “At the end of the day, this is not the same as uncovering COVID-19’s origin.  Nor is it evidence that our scientific community caused and has sought to cover up the origins of the pandemic, and to cast it as such would be misleading to the American public, damaging to already declining confidence in science and public health and ultimately harmful to our nation's pandemic preparedness.”

• Rep. Garcia slammed Republicans’ extreme agenda for the Select Subcommittee:  “What’s clear is that the Subcommittee needs to actually focus on good faith investigations, supporting additional research, ensuring that our grantees are actually given the support that they need.  And I think what’s also really clear is that we have opportunities in this appropriations cycle and in others in the future, to actually collaborate, support HHS, support the work that scientists are doing across this country, and that we stop making these conspiracy theorists, arguments and attacks that aren’t really helping us solve any future pandemics that we may and we know we will experience in the future.”