The National Institutes of Health has not exactly covered itself in glory during the last few years. And it has proven to be woefully naive and stupid when it comes to handing out grant money. This was proven yet again late Friday when the NIH deputy director announced that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was now being cut off from a “subaward.”

Yes, you read that right. The Wuhan lab that is most likely responsible for unleashing COVID-19 on the world is JUST NOW BEING CUT OFF FROM NIH MONEY. Anyone else feel like screaming and breaking a few things?

The Republican ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer of Kentucky, got a letter from NIH Deputy Director Michael Lauer (how surprising, that they got this letter on Friday afternoon!) informing him that because the Wuhan Institute of Virology wasn’t complying with the terms of the “subaward,” the funding was being terminated. But the letter also informed the House Oversight Committee that the NIH might still keep giving EcoHealth Alliance, the group that the Wuhan lab was receiving the NIH funding from, money to continue THEIR research.

NIH Deputy Director Michael Lauer made the revelation in a letter Friday to House Oversight Committee Republicans, in which he said the Wuhan lab had refused to turn over lab notebooks and electronic files connected to its research funded through an NIH subaward given to it by the U.S.-based EcoHealth Alliance.”

But Lauer indicated the NIH may continue funding EcoHealth’s controversial bat coronavirus research despite the group’s documented noncompliance issues, its close links to the Wuhan virology institute, and its history of funneling hundreds of thousands of U.S. tax dollars to the Chinese lab.”

“NIH … identified one non-compliance under the … award that cannot be remedied with specific award conditions,” Lauer said Friday. “NIH has requested on two occasions that EHA [EcoHealth Alliance] provide NIH the laboratory notebooks and original electronic files from the research conducted at the WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology]. To date, WIV has not provided these records.”

Lauer added: “Today, NIH informed EHA that since WIV is unable to fulfill its duties for the subaward grant under R01AI110964, the WIV subaward is terminated for failure to meet award terms and conditions requiring provision of records to NIH upon request.”

Okay, let’s parse this out. The Wuhan lab has stonewalled giving out ANY information about their bat coronavirus gain of function research. What a shock, that a laboratory that is literally been working side-by-side with military scientists in Communist China would decide to NOT share any information about how their potentially colossal f**k up killed millions of people! I’m shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you. But the NIH, through EcoHealth Alliance, kept giving the Wuhan Institute of Virology this grant money, because… why? Feelings? Utter stupidity? Their belief that Chinese Communist scientists would be honest because SCIENCE? After everything that we have been through for almost three years, the NIH is just now getting around to telling EcoHealth, “sorry, no more subaward grant money for Wuhan.”

But the NIH might still keep giving money to EcoHealth Alliance. Yes, EcoHealth, the group led by Peter Daszak, who was also tasked by the World Health Organization to lead an investigation on where COVID-19 came from. Just a small conflict of interest, wouldn’t you say, especially since Daszak knew full well that the Wuhan lab was engaged in gain of function research. But it totally couldn’t have been the lab!

So when the lab said “nope, not us,” Daszak was happy to believe them.

EcoHealth leader Peter Daszak was a longtime collaborator with the Wuhan lab who steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in NIH funding to the Chinese lab and was also a key World Health Organization-China joint study team member in early 2021.”

Daszak dismissed the lab leak hypothesis in March 2021 when he admitted he took Wuhan lab workers at their word. Meeting minutes from discussions between lab scientists in Wuhan and the WHO-China COVID-19 origins joint study team reveal lab leak concerns were referred to as “myths” and “conspiracy theories.”

And despite EcoHealth Alliance’s rather shady problems, the NIH thinks that it might be okay to keep giving them grant money.

The NIH said Friday that the prior problems it had identified with EcoHealth’s handling of its coronavirus grant included “inadequate oversight in monitoring the activities of its subawardees, failure to report subawards to the General Services Administration’s Federal Subaward Reporting System, and errors in indirect rate charges.”

But Lauer nevertheless said EcoHealth might again soon start receiving U.S. tax funding for its bat coronavirus experiments — just without the Wuhan lab’s continued involvement.”

Are. You. KIDDING. Yeah, this sounds like a GREAT idea, continuing to give our taxpayer dollars – because that is what NIH grant money is – to EcoHealth so they can keep playing around with bat coronaviruses!

The House Oversight Committee Republicans were, let’s say, not happy about this news from Deputy Director Lauer.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the ranking member on House Oversight, hammered the NIH over this.”

“Terminating EcoHealth Alliance’s partnership with the Wuhan Lab is the bare minimum,” Comer said Friday. “It’s unacceptable that the NIH continues to allow EcoHealth Alliance to receive taxpayer dollars even though it is confirmed EcoHealth violated the terms of its grant contract. EcoHealth conducted gain of function research on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, knew about the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup, and failed to inform the U.S. government.”

Comer added: “EcoHealth’s dangerous experiments in Wuhan and possible efforts to cover up any evidence may have started the pandemic. EcoHealth should not receive a penny of American taxpayer dollars for their gross mismanagement of Americans’ hard-earned money.”

https://twitter.com/GOPoversight/status/1560752262175137794
But here’s the real kicker. In the letter that the NIH sent EcoHealth Alliance about the subaward grant being terminated due to the Wuhan lab’s noncompliance, the NIH informs them that this “partial termination” can be appealed. EcoHealth just has to submit a written appeal within 30 days of getting the letter, along with any evidence they have that would help their case. After all of this, the NIH is STILL WILLING to give EcoHealth money, so long as they have good reasons and evidence for getting it. *insert screaming noise here*

The Republicans say that they will provide “oversight and accountability” once they take control of the House in 2023. I will believe it when I see it. But if it’s this kind of shit that our tax dollars are being wasted on… well, no wonder they want so many new IRS agents to make sure we keep coughing up tax dollars for this ongoing insanity.

Featured image: The James A. Shannon Building, the National Institutes of Health, via Wikimedia Commons, cropped, public domain