Cancel funding for bat virus study

Fauci says White House told NIH to cancel funding for bat virus study

“Why was it canceled? It was canceled because the NIH was told to cancel it," Fauci said.

By DAVID LIM and BRIANNA EHLEY

The White House directed the National Institutes of Health to cancel funding for a project studying how coronaviruses spread from bats to people, the government's top infectious disease expert said Tuesday.

“Why was it canceled? It was canceled because the NIH was told to cancel it," said Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in response to a question during a House Energy & Commerce Hearing. "I don’t know the reason, but we were told to cancel it.”

Fauci later told POLITICO that the White House ordered NIH to cut the research grant to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance.

The backstory: The Trump administration abruptly cut funding for the research in April, with more than $350,000 in grant money remaining in EcoHealth’s 2020 grant.

The cancellation came shortly after reports had linked the project to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research facility in the city where the coronavirus first emerged — and one that has been the subject of unproven conspiracy theories about the pandemic's origins. EcoHealth Alliance scientists have collaborated with researchers from the Wuhan lab in the past, but were not doing so when the grant was ended.

The NIH typically only cancels a grant when there is scientific misconduct or improper financial behavior, neither of which it has alleged in this case. Instead, a top agency official told the EcoHealth Alliance at the time that "NIH does not believe the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities."

The administration weighs in: A White House official said that the White House encouraged the decision to cut the funding, but that HHS ultimately made the call. A HHS spokesperson said that "the grantee was not in compliance with NIH's grant policy," and declined further comment.

What’s next: Expect lawmakers to more closely scrutinize the decision to cut funding for the research.