The bicameral effort led by Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) came following September reports that nearly $3 million of federal funds had continued flowing into the New York-based nonprofit group, the largest sum the organization has received from the NIH in a single year.
NIH is under heavy scrutiny for its role in funneling public money to a key laboratory in China for bat coronavirus research that many believe may have caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lawmakers pointed to the failure of the group to provide information about the taxpayer-funded coronavirus research being conducted with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) as requested by NIH.
EcoHealth’s president, Peter Daszak, called the questioning “inappropriate” and “heinous,” the group noted.
“He also orchestrated an effort to taint the investigation into the origins of COVID-19, calling suggestions that there could have been a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute ‘conspiracy theories,’” the Oct. 7 letter further stated.
The health agency eventually terminated the WIV sub-award on Aug. 19, citing the group’s refusal to report a WIV experiment that made the bat coronavirus more dangerous.
The lawmakers questioned in the letters, “Given this history of compliance failure and concerning lack of transparency, what made NIH suddenly reverse course to award EcoHealth new funding?”
Resuming the funding to the health group amounts to gross abuse of hard-working Americans’ tax dollars, Reschenthaler said in a statement on Oct. 10.
“EcoHealth and its president, Peter Daszak, are complicit in failing to comply with federal law and collaborating with a Chinese Communist Party secret laboratory,” he further stated.
According to the Pennsylvania congressman, the move is part of their bid to “hold the Biden Administration accountable to end the relationship with this negligent organization.”
