NEW: Ernst Successful in Banning Taxpayer Funding to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology
Ernst has been sounding the alarm for over a year about U.S. tax dollars being funneled into China’s state-run lab; Senate unanimously agrees to Ernst amendment
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has been
sounding the alarm for over a year about U.S. tax dollars being funneled into China’s state-run Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), successfully banned any additional future U.S. funding from going to China’s state-lab. Ernst’s amendment was adopted, with unanimous support, to the
Endless Frontier Act—a bill being considered this week in the Senate that aims to help the U.S. compete with China in research and development.
Ernst’s ban on future U.S. funding to the WIV comes after the
Wall Street Journal
reported that three researchers from the lab
became sick enough in November of 2019 – something Ernst
noted earlier this year – that they went and sought hospital care, raising new questions about the lab.
Ernst spoke on the floor ahead of the vote on her amendment.
“Providing additional U.S. funds to subsidize any state-run lab in China—especially the Wuhan Institute of Virology—goes against the very purpose of the underlying bill, which is to support more research in the U.S. to better compete with China. Today the Senate unanimously agreed with me that not another dime of taxpayer dollars should be spent subsidizing this lab in Communist China,” said Senator Ernst.
“We applaud Sen. Ernst for her outstanding work to protect taxpayers and public health by permanently defunding the dangerous Wuhan Institute of Virology. Shipping tax dollars to a notorious CCP-run animal lab that’s supercharging coronaviruses, and where there’s no transparency and accountability about how our money is spent, was a recipe for disaster,” said Anthony Bellotti, president of taxpayer watchdog group White Coat Waste Project.
Background:
Last year, Ernst
helped expose $600,000 of U.S. taxpayer money was funneled to Communist China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) by way of a non-profit.
In April 2020, Ernst
called on Congressional leadership to ensure no COVID stimulus funds went to WIV after it was exposed that the lab was funded by NIH.
In May 2020, Ernst
called to defund the Wuhan Institute and China’s dangerous wet markets.
In March 2021, Ernst
called on the Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General to find out why the agency is refusing to comply with a law and disclose how many taxpayer dollars are spent on specific research projects, like those being conducted with the WIV. She also introduced the
Cost Openness and Spending Transparency (COST) Act which requires every project – from all federal agencies – supported with federal funds to include a price tag with the cost.
Also in March of this year, Ernst
shed “sunlight” on the dangerous Wuhan Institute where she noted,
“In the months just prior to the first case of the new pathogen being publicly identified, researchers at this state-run lab reportedly became sick with COVID-like symptoms.”
In April 2021, Ernst
penned an op-ed writing in part, “
The NIH needs to answer questions about why it allowed funds to go to this lab and what it knew about the reported problems there. It also needs to explain why it broke federal spending transparency law that would have given Congress, and most importantly the American people, a heads up that tax dollars were shipped to a virus lab run by the CCP.”
Ernst has also
called for an independent, scientific investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
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