COVID Lab Leak: Over four later, EcoHealth Alliance funding is finally suspended

Federal Funding Stripped From Nonprofit at Center of COVID Lab Leak Controversy

Today, the Biden administration suspended federal funding to the scientific nonprofit whose research is at the center of credible theories that the COVID-19 pandemic was started via a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

This morning, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it was immediately suspending three grants provided to the New York-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) as it starts the process of debarring the organization from receiving any federal funds.

“The immediate suspension of [EcoHealth Alliance] is necessary to protect the public interest and due to a cause of so serious or compelling a nature that it affects EHA’s present responsibility,” wrote HHS Deputy Secretary for Acquisitions Henrietta Brisbon in a memorandum signed this morning.

For years now, EcoHealth has generated immense controversy for its use of federal grant money to support gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab.

In a memo justifying its funding suspension, HHS said that EcoHealth had failed to properly monitor the work it was supporting at Wuhan. It also failed to properly report on the results of experiments showing that the hybrid viruses it was creating there had an improved ability to infect human cells.

Congressional Republicans leading an investigation into EcoHealth’s research in Wuhan, and the role it may have played in starting the pandemic via a lab leak, cheered HHS’s decision.

“EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight, willingly violated multiple requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health [NIH] grant, and apparently made false statements to the NIH,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R–Ohio), chair of the House’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in a statement. “These actions are wholly abhorrent, indefensible, and must be addressed with swift action.”

Beginning in 2014, EcoHealth received a grant from NIH’s National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to study bat coronavirus in China. Its initial scope of work involved collecting and cataloging viruses in the wild and studying them in the lab to spot which ones might be primed to “spillover” into humans and cause a pandemic.

Soon enough, EcoHealth used some of the viruses they’d collected to create “chimeric” or hybrid viruses that might be better able to infect human lung cells in genetically engineered (humanized) mice.

This so-called “gain-of-function” research has long been controversial for its potential to create deadly pandemic pathogens. In 2014, the Obama administration paused federal funding of gain-of-function research that might turn SARS, MERS, or flu viruses into more transmissible respiratory diseases in mammals.

In 2016, NIH flagged EcoHealth’s work as likely violating the 2014 pause.

EcoHealth President Peter Daszak argued to NIH at the time that the viruses his outfit was creating had not been proven to infect human cells and were genetically different enough from past pandemic viruses that they didn’t fall under the Obama administration pause.

Wuhan Institute of Virology and Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance

NIH accepted this argument under the condition that EcoHealth immediately stop its work and notify the agency if any of its hybrid viruses did show increased viral growth in humanized mice.

But when these hybrid viruses did show increased viral growth in mice, EcoHealth did not immediately stop work or notify NIH. It instead waited until it submitted an annual progress report in 2018 to disclose the results of its experiments.

A second progress report that EcoHealth submitted in 2021, two years after its due date, also showed its hybrid viruses were demonstrating increased viral growth and enhanced lethality in humanized mice.

In testimony to the House’s coronavirus subcommittee earlier this month, Daszak claimed that EcoHealth attempted to report the results of its gain-of-function experiments on time in 2019, but was frozen out of NIH’s reporting system.

The HHS memo released today says a forensic investigation found no evidence that EcoHealth was locked out of NIH’s reporting system. The department also said that EcoHealth had failed to produce requested lab notes and other materials from the Wuhan lab detailing the work being done there and the lab’s biosafety conditions.

These all amount to violations of EcoHealth’s grant agreement and NIH grant policy, thus warranting debarment from future federal funds, reads the HHS memo.

That EcoHealth would be stripped of its federal funding shouldn’t come as too great a shock to anyone who watched Daszak’s congressional testimony from earlier this month. Even Democrats on the committee openly accused Daszak of being misleading about EcoHealth’s work and manipulating facts.

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D–Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House’s coronavirus subcommittee, welcomed EcoHealth’s suspension, saying in a press release that the nonprofit failed its “obligation to meet the utmost standards of transparency and accountability to the American public.”

An HHS Office of the Inspector General report from last year had already found that EcoHealth had failed to submit progress reports on time or effectively monitor its subgrantee, the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

When grilling Daszak, Democrats on the Coronavirus Subcommittee went to great lengths to not criticize NIH’s oversight of EcoHealth’s work. The HHS debarment memo likewise focuses only on EcoHealth’s failures to abide by NIH policy and its grant conditions.

Nevertheless, it seems pretty obvious that NIH was failing to abide by the 2014 pause on gain-of-function funding when it allowed EcoHealth to go ahead with creating hybrid coronaviruses under the condition that they stop if the viruses did prove more virulent.

NIH compounded that oversight failure by not stopping EcoHealth’s funding when the nonprofit did, in fact, create more virulent viruses, and not following up on a never-submitted progress report detailing more gain-of-function research until two years later.

The House Subcommittee’s investigation into NIH’s role in gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab is ongoing. Tomorrow it will interview NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawerence Tabak. In June, it will interview former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci.

Originally published by Reason Foundation. Republished with permission.

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Canadian veteran challenges conviction for guarding War Memorial during Freedom Convoy

Published on October 23, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

When the convoy first came to Ottawa, allegations were floated that the memorial had been desecrated. After learning of this, Evely quickly organized a group of veterans to stand guard around the clock to protect the area.

A Canadian veteran appealed to the Ontario courts after he was convicted for organizing a guard around the National War Memorial during the Freedom Convoy.

In an October press release, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) announced that an appeal has been filed in the Ontario Court of Appeals on behalf of Master Warrant Officer (Ret’d) Jeffrey Evely over his conviction for mischief and obstructing police while on his way to guard the Ottawa War Memorial during the 2022 Freedom Convoy.

“By locking down large sections of downtown Ottawa, the police were effectively preventing all civilians from accessing public areas and greatly exceeded their powers under the common law,” constitutional lawyer Chris Fleury explained.

“This case raises issues that have implications for protests across the province and the country. We are hopeful that the Ontario Court of Appeal will agree and grant leave to appeal,” he added.

The appeal argues that police overstepped their authority in their response to the 2022 protest of COVID mandates. Police actions at the time included locking down the Ottawa core, establishing checkpoints, and arresting protesters.

In September 2024, Everly was convicted of mischief and obstruction after his involvement in the 2022 Freedom Convoy, which protested COVID mandates by gathering Canadians in front of Parliament in Ottawa.

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, when the convoy first came to Ottawa, allegations were floated that the memorial had been desecrated. After learning of this, Evely quickly organized a group of veterans to stand guard around the clock to protect the area.

However, under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act, many parts of downtown Ottawa were blocked to the public, and a vigilant police force roamed the streets.

It was during this time that Evely was arrested for entering a closed off section of downtown Ottawa during the early hours of February 19, 2022. He had been on his way to take the 4:25 a.m. shift protecting the Ottawa War Memorial.

He was forcibly pushed to the ground, landing face first. The veteran was then arrested and charged with mischief and obstructing police.

At the time, the use of the EA was justified by claims that the protest was “violent,” a claim that has still gone unsubstantiated.

In fact, videos of the protest against COVID regulations and shot mandates show Canadians from across the country gathering outside Parliament engaged in dancing, street hockey, and other family-friendly activities.

Indeed, the only acts of violence caught on video were carried out against the protesters after the Trudeau government directed police to end the protest. One such video showed an elderly women being trampled by a police horse.

While the officers’ actions were originally sanctioned under the EA, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that Trudeau was “not justified” in invoking the EA, forcing Crown prosecutors to adopt a different strategy.

Now, Crown prosecutors allege that the common law granted police the authority to stop and detain Evely, regardless of the EA.

However, Evely and his lawyers have challenged this argument under section 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, insisting that his “arrest and detention were arbitrary.”

Earlier this month, Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were sentenced to 18-month house arrest after a harrowing 25-month trial process. Many have condemned the sentence, warning it amounts to “political persecution” of those who stand up to the Liberal government.

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Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich says ‘I am not to leave the house’ while serving sentence

Published on October 18, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

‘I was hoping to be able to drop off and pick up my grandsons from school, but apparently that request will have to go to a judge’

Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich detailed her restrictive house arrest conditions, revealing she is “not” able to leave her house or even pick up her grandkids from school without permission from the state.

Lich wrote in a X post on Wednesday that this past Tuesday was her first meeting with her probation officer, whom she described as “fair and efficient,” adding that she was handed the conditions set out by the judge.

“I was hoping to be able to drop off and pick up my grandsons from school, but apparently that request will have to go to a judge under a variation application, so we’ll just leave everything as is for now,” she wrote.

Lich noted that she has another interview with her probation officer next week to “assess the level of risk I pose to re-offend.”

“It sounds like it’ll basically be a questionnaire to assess my mental state and any dangers I may pose to society,” she said.

While it is common for those on house arrest to have to ask for permission to leave their house, sometimes arrangements can be made otherwise.

On October 7, Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey sentenced Lich and Chris Barber to 18 months’ house arrest after being convicted earlier in the year convicted of “mischief.”

Lich was given 18 months less time already spent in custody, amounting to 15 1/2 months.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian government was hoping to put Lich in jail for no less than seven years and Barber for eight years for their roles in the 2022 protests against COVID mandates.

Lich said that her probation officer “informed me of the consequences should I breach these conditions, and I am not to leave the house, even for the approved ‘necessities of life’ without contacting her to let her know where I’ll be and for how long,” she wrote.

“She will then provide a letter stating I have been granted permission to be out in society. I’m to have my papers on my person at all times and ready to produce should I be pulled over or seen by law enforcement out and about.”

Lich said that the probation officer did print a letter “before I left, so I could stop at the optometrist and dentist offices on my way home.”

She said that her official release date is January 21, 2027, which she said amounts to “1,799 days after my initial arrest.”

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Lich, reflecting on her recent house arrest verdict, said she has no “remorse” and will not “apologize” for leading a movement that demanded an end to all COVID mandates.

LifeSiteNews reported that Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre offered his thoughts on the sentencing, wishing them a “peaceful” life while stopping short of blasting the sentence as his fellow MPs did.

In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Trudeau’s government enacted the never-before-used Emergencies Act (EA) on February 14, 2022.