Trump to Ban Risky — and Controversial — Virus Research That Likely Led to COVID Pandemic; Scientist Who Pushed for COVID Lab Leak Theory Investigation Says High-Risk Research Needs Oversight, and other C-Virus related stories

Trump to ban risky — and controversial — virus research that likely led to COVID pandemic:

President Trump will sign an executive order Monday to ban all federal funding of risky gain-of-function research in China, Iran and other countries without proper oversight of the experiments — more than five years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that US intel agencies have since said most likely resulted from a lab accident.

The order will yank funding from “any present and all future” gain-of-function research as well as deputize the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies to identify biological research harmful to public health or threatening to national security.

“These measures will drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology,” according to a White House fact sheet reviewed by The Post.

White House officials also dinged the Biden administration for allowing the possibly global-pandemic producing experiments that enhance the infectiousness of viruses and bacteria.

Additionally, all research with infectious pathogens and toxins will be paused until the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and national security adviser develop a new policy with enforcement and reporting requirements. --->READ MORE HERE

Scientist who pushed for COVID lab leak theory investigation says high-risk research needs oversight:

Five years after the COVID pandemic started, a scientist who warned against dismissing the controversial "lab leak" theory says more needs to be done to prevent high-risk research from potentially causing a global health crisis.

Alina Chan is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. When WBZ-TV interviewed her in 2021, she said she got online hate and even death threats over her belief that COVID could have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.

"The virus was highly adapted for human transmission," Chan said. "In December 2019, the virus we saw was ready go, ready to cause a pandemic."

She said the lab leak theory got an "allergic response" from the scientific community and public health leaders.

"They just could not accept the idea that a scientific research accident might have caused a pandemic," Chan said.

But in January, the CIA under former President Biden's administration said a lab leak was a more likely cause of the pandemic than a natural origin. Chan said the damage was done, however, as the debate about COVID's origins had become a political issue.

"Now we're seeing all these funding cuts, people are saying, you know, screw the scientists, we don't want to give them any more money," Chan said. "That's not coming out of nowhere." --->READ MORE HERE

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