GOP lawmakers are calling out the Biden administration for blocking efforts to get to uncover the true origins of COVID-19.
Twenty-one House Republicans penned a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra and National Institutes of Health (NIH) acting director Dr. Lawrence Tabak pushing each department head to finally produce long-requested information about the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) – the top for the origin of COVID-19.
The HHS and NIH have been ignoring for months GOP requests for documents regarding federal grant money that was awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, a research group that granted some of its received U.S. taxpayer money to the Wuhan lab to study coronaviruses in bats.
The Republicans also noted that they have yet to hear answers back over concerns about conflicts of interests among over a dozen top federal health officials who shaped the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci and former NIH director Dr. Francis Collins. Collins resigned from the NIH in December.
Fauci, Collins, and 11 other top government scientist played a critical role in denying the possibility that the virus may have come out of the WIV, in what many believe to be an attempt to cover up their own role in the creation of the virus.
The Republicans are now accusing Becerra and Tabak of flagrantly ignoring and stonewalling the lawmakers’ requests for information since they initially received them in May 2021.
The letter says:
“Rather than be transparent with Committee Republicans, HHS and NIH have chosen to hide, obfuscate, and shield the truth. This stonewalling is particularly troubling considering NIH’s direct involvement in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the agency’s policy or practice to destroy potentially pertinent documents related to grant making decisions. For example, we know that an NIH advisor was forced by NIH to shred notes and other documents pertaining to the WIV grants as early as 2014.
By continuing to refuse to cooperate with our request, HHS and NIH are choosing to hide information that will help inform the origins of the ongoing pandemic, prevent future pandemics, strengthen the United States’ national security posture, and restore confidence in our public health experts and infrastructure. The agencies’ continued obstruction is likely to cause irreparable harm to the credibility of these institutions. By providing the requested documents and information, HHS and NIH will have the opportunity to help our country move forward in a positive, transparent direction following the COVID-19 pandemic.
As an additional accommodation, we are providing more specificity to our original Requests. Therefore, we request the documents and information listed in the Appendix as soon as possible but no later than February 16, 2022. If HHS and NIH are unable to meet this deadline, please contact Committee Republican staff as soon as possible.”
Author: Luis Alvan
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