The Defense Department can't account for all of its money that may have been sent to China to conduct risky research enhancing viruses, according to an inspector general's report that blamed bad data collection at the department for gaps in understanding what it was paying for.
Security personnel manned the entrance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology during a Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021, visit by a team from the World Health Organization. **FILE**The Defense Department can’t account for all of its money that may have been sent to China to conduct risky research enhancing viruses, according to an inspector general’s report that blamed bad data collection at the department for gaps in understanding what it was paying for.
The only way to figure out where all the research money ended up would be a full manual review, and neither the department nor the inspector general had the resources to do that. In the case of China, some U.S. agencies believe the coronavirus leaked from a research lab in Wuhan. The Institute of Virology received U.S. funding, though the agencies that provided the money say it was not meant for the sort of gain-of-function research that is one explanation for COVID-19.
That’s critical because EcoHealth is the firm that siphoned U.S. dollars from the Health Department to the Wuhan lab. EcoHealth says the money was not used for gain-of-function research.Sen. Joni Ernst, Iowa Republican, sponsored the legislative language urging the report. She told the Pentagon to release an unredacted version.
The senator said in one instance one of the redactions refers to a project that the Defense Department already acknowledges on its website, albeit without any mention of Chinese connections or “the collaboration with a company closely affiliated with China’s People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party.”
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