Letter to Samantha Power, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
"Today we write with deep concern about the millions of dollars the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is actively paying EcoHealth Alliance (EcoHealth), a U.S. nonprofit organization led by Peter Daszak. Peter Daszak through EcoHealth has provided an offshore vehicle to channel USAID and other federal grants to foreign researchers for decades. This arrangement endangers foreign researchers to the risks involved with collecting and experimenting on pathogens with pandemic potential and prevents direct U.S. oversight of the research. It is also noteworthy that EcoHealth’s subaward to the WIV permitted the transfer of U.S. intellectual property to researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China.
EcoHealth’s Failure to Comply with U.S. Federal Laws and NIH Grant Requirements
In July 2020, NIH suspended its bat coronavirus research grant to EcoHealth due to administrative noncompliance concerns when NIH determined that EcoHealth failed to monitor WIV research activities in China that posed 'serious bio-safety concerns and, as a result, create health and welfare threats to the public in China and other countries, including the United States.' NIH also determined that EcoHealth violated federal law for five years by failing to publicly report its grant subawards to the WIV and other organizations...
Dangerous Research
In an August 3, 2022 hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight, expert witnesses testified that the type of viral collection gain-of-function research EcoHealth Alliance conducts with pandemic-capable pathogens 'can emerge from such studies as potential weapons of mass destruction, inexpensive and easily distributed.' The research is more likely to cause a pandemic then [sic] prevent one and has no civilian practical applications from a research perspective...
USAID Must Suspend Awards to EcoHealth
USAID is currently funding EcoHealth through multi-million dollar grants to, in part, continue viral collection research for pandemic prediction and preparedness. As a prime recipient of the nearly $4.7 million Conservation Works Activity project and as a subrecipient of USAID’s $85 million One Health Workforce grant and $8 million READY Initiative grant, EcoHealth’s role relates to training foreign researchers and capacity building laboratories.
Despite representing to NIH that they had no WIV records, EcoHealth as a PREDICT consortium partner reported in 2020 accomplishments that through the fall of 2019, they trained 80 Chinese scientists, sampled over 7,300 animals and people, and strengthened the WIV laboratory and the Institute of Microbiology by conducting 39,137 tests of viral pathogens...
It is therefore incumbent upon USAID to be responsible stewards of U.S. taxpayer funds, help protect foreign researchers from risk, and immediately suspend all awards to EcoHealth."
US Senate letter in the public domain.