US halts funding to controversial virus-hunting group: what researchers thinkSome scientists think the decision regarding EcoHealth Alliance is fair; others say it might negatively affect virus surveillance.
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has suspended federal funding for EcoHealth Alliance, a New York City-based non-profit organization that came under scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic for collaborating with a virology laboratory in China that was accused of potentially leaking the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Researchers who spoke to Nature are divided in their reaction to the decision: some think that the HHS made the right call, given EcoHealth’s apparent failure to comply with the terms of a grant that it had received, undermining public trust; others say that the decision seems to be unfairly wrapped up in politics.
In a memo detailing the decision, Henrietta Brisbon, the HHS’s suspension and debarment official, argued that EcoHealth had not provided adequate oversight of research activities at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), in China. The WIV was a subrecipient of a federal grant awarded to EcoHealth by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), meaning that it was a partner given funds to carry out some of the research covered by the grant. The document also describes how EcoHealth repeatedly failed to provide information requested by the NIH pertaining to the research conducted.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01460-3