The new batch of FOIA emails, which was obtained by independent journalist James Tobias, shows a pattern of deception at the highest echelons of the NIH, including both its former director, Francis Collins, and current NIH Director Lawrence Tabak, who was previously Collins’s deputy.
The emails also show that when President Donald Trump cut funding to EcoHealth Alliance—the group through which the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Director Anthony Fauci funneled federal grant money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)—a litany of organizations and individuals petitioned the NIH to keep the money flowing to EcoHealth. Those efforts ignored revelations on EcoHealth’s work with the controversial lab and instead focused on animosity toward Trump.
NIH Director Admits EcoHealth Problems
Perhaps the most significant revelation to emerge from the new FOIA emails is that the situation surrounding EcoHealth and its connection to Wuhan was causing NIH leaders a far bigger headache than their public pronouncements indicated.In August 2020, Collins sent an email to Harold Varmus, one of his predecessors as director of the NIH, admitting that “this EcoHealth grant and its connection to Wuhan has presented one of the most difficult and wrenching situations of my 11 years as NIH Director. Most of that is not appropriate for e-mail.”
In the same email, Collins went on to say that there was “a lot more to this story than we have been able to talk about. Tony [Fauci] and I would like the chance to speak with you about this.”
This email had been previously released under FOIA but its contents were almost entirely redacted.
Campaign to Keep Money Flowing to EcoHealth
The new FOIA emails also provide insights into the massive campaign undertaken by outside parties to reinstate EcoHealth’s grant.The petitions, which are included in the new FOIA release, originated with a wide variety of groups, including the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the HIV Medicine Association, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, Climate Health Now, ICAP at Columbia University, the AIDS Foundation, and the Latino Commission on AIDS. Hundreds of individuals, many from universities, also petitioned the NIH to reinstate EcoHealth’s grant. The thrust of most of the petitions is that Trump capriciously revoked EcoHealth’s grant because he believed in the “conspiracy theory” that COVID-19 had come out of a Wuhan lab.
Seventy-seven Nobel laureates also stepped up to complain bitterly about the grant cancellation, claiming in a letter to Collins that “now is precisely the time when we need to support this kind of research if we aim to control the pandemic and prevent subsequent ones.” Their letter went on to explain that “[EcoHealth President] Dr. Daszak and his colleagues have been conducting highly regarded, NIH supported research on coronaviruses and other infectious agents, focusing on the transmission of these viruses from animal hosts to human beings.” Apparently, the 77 Nobel laureates were oblivious to the copious academic literature—which was widely available at the time—describing EcoHealth’s extensive involvement in gain-of-function experiments at the WIV.
Seven members of Congress, Reps. Joseph D. Morelle (D-N.Y.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Nydia M. Velázquez (D-N.Y.) also petitioned Collins to reinstate EcoHealth’s grant, which they claimed was canceled because Trump believed in a “conspiracy theory.” They further claimed, “The necessity for this work is clear, now more than ever. EcoHealth Alliance has been receiving federal funding since 2014 to study the risk of bat coronavirus emergence—the specific global health emergency we now face.” Apparently, these members of Congress were unaware of the possibility that it was EcoHealth’s work that caused the global health emergency.
In another letter that called on Collins to reinstate the grant, Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Bill Foster (D-Ill.), and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) suggested that the cancellation was an “egregious example of the Administration politicizing scientific decision making in order to further a politically convenient narrative.”
Irrespective of how the mass petitioning happened, the new emails reveal that NIH leadership quickly came together to brainstorm ways in which EcoHealth’s grant could be restored.
One of the emails included in the new FOIA release is a document from Lauer titled “EcoHealth Alliance narrative.” The contents of the document, which was sent to Tabak, are completely redacted. Another document from Lauer is titled “EcoHealth Alliance narrative” “Option 1c,” suggesting that Lauer was drafting different versions of EcoHealth narratives. The “Option 1c” document is also fully redacted. We can only guess why top NIH officials were engaged in discussing and formulating different narratives.
Ultimately, NIH leadership decided to reinstate EcoHealth’s grant that Trump had canceled. Lauer informed EcoHealth of the reinstatement in a letter dated July 8, 2020, without providing an explanation.
Notably, while the grant was nominally reinstated, all research activities related to the grant remained suspended pending a review of WIV records with the aim of “addressing the question of whether WIV staff had SARS-CoV-2 in their possession prior to December 2019.”
This was a condition that NIH knew EcoHealth would not and could not fulfill, even if it wanted to, as it required cooperation from Chinese authorities. Indeed, EcoHealth replied in early August 2020 to say that it would not comply with the request.
Collins, Lauer, and Tabak appear to have drawn up this seemingly paradoxical arrangement in order to wash their hands as far as the canceled grant and EcoHealth’s activities at WIV were concerned. Groups that petitioned in favor of EcoHealth could be placated and EcoHealth could claim vindication, while the NIH was at the same time insulated from accusations that it was still funding experiments at the Wuhan lab.