DONALD Trump has banned all US funding for risky virus research in China and beyond, five years after Covid-19 upended the planet.
In a blistering executive order signed Monday, Trump outlawed federal support for gain-of-function experiments in countries like China and Iran — blaming the controversial research for unleashing the global health catastrophe.
AFPUS President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning risky virus research on Monday[/caption] ReutersSecurity personnel keep watch outside Wuhan Institute of Virology in China[/caption] EPAShi Zhengli – dubbed ‘Batwoman’ for her work on bat coronaviruses – pictured at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)[/caption] AFPAn aerial view shows the P4 laboratory at the WIV[/caption]The US President said in the Oval Office: “I said that right from day one it leaked out — whether it was to the girlfriend or somebody else, [a] scientist walked outside to have lunch with the girlfriend or was together with a lot of people — but that’s how it leaked out in my opinion.
“I’ve never changed that opinion, so it can leak out innocently, stupidly and incompetently, but innocently and half destroy the world.”
The dramatic order pulls the plug on “any present and all future” funding for experiments that make viruses more infectious or deadly – a field many scientists call “dual-use” research due to its potential military and public health impacts.
It will also appoint the National Institutes of Health and other agencies to sniff out and shut down bio-research posing a threat to public safety or national security.
According to a White House fact sheet, the 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.”
The move comes amid a renewed global spotlight on the origins of Covid-19.
There has been a growing consensus among US intelligence agencies including the FBI, Department of Energy, and the CIA that a lab leak in Wuhan is the likeliest explanation.
Trump’s team tore into the Biden administration for failing to slam the brakes earlier on risky foreign experiments that “half destroyed the world.”
“Many people believe that gain-of-function research was one of the key causes of the Covid pandemic that struck us in the last decade,” said White House secretary Will Scharf.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hailed it as “a historic day” and “the end of gain-of-function research funding by the federal government.”
What is gain-of-function research?
GAIN-of-function (GoF) research involves altering an organism — typically a virus or bacterium — to give it new or enhanced abilities.
When it comes to viruses, this often means making them:• More transmissible (spread more easily between people or animals)• More virulent (cause more severe illness)• Able to infect new species (including humans)
The goal is usually to better understand how pathogens evolve or to develop vaccines and treatments.
For example, scientists might tweak a flu virus to see how it could mutate to jump from birds to humans — giving researchers a head start on fighting future outbreaks.
But GoF research is highly controversial because of the risk it could create a supervirus that escapes the lab — whether accidentally or deliberately — and triggers a pandemic, as many fear happened with Covid-19.
“This dangerous game of function research, which aims at taking pathogens and making them more virulent, more transmissible on humans, many scientists believe is responsible for the COVID pandemic,” added NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
“This research does not protect us against pandemics, as some people might say. There’s always a danger that in doing this research, it might leak out,” he said.
“The vast majority of science will go on under this as normal.”
The Covid-19 pandemic, which killed more than seven million people worldwide and over one million Americans, has long been surrounded by suspicion over its origins.
Though former NIH boss Dr. Francis Collins and ex-NIAID chief Dr. Anthony Fauci insist the virus likely jumped naturally from animals to humans, others — including former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield — have backed the lab leak theory.
It comes after The Sun’s explosive Covid lab leak documentary laid bare the mounting evidence and disturbing questions surrounding the virus’s emergence in Wuhan — home to China’s most secretive bio-research facility.
The new crackdown also follows an explosive congressional report last December, which concluded Covid “most likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan” – implicating China, US officials, and scientific institutions in a cover-up.
The report also revealed the DOJ had probed the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance – accused of funnelling US taxpayer cash to the Wuhan lab through projects like “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”
The program, funded by NIAID and USAID between 2014 and 2021, led to gain-of-function research, according to former The National Institutes of Health (NIH) deputy director Dr. Lawrence Tabak — though officials have denied any direct Covid link.
Another proposal, Project DEFUSE, submitted by EcoHealth president Dr. Peter Daszak to DARPA, sought to create chimeric bat coronaviruses — and has since been labelled the “smoking gun” by lab leak proponents.
Though never funded, former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) chief Redfield has warned such projects may still have been tested under other grants.
AFPPeter Daszak, a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus, arriving at the WIV in 2021[/caption] Social Media - Refer to SourceDr. Shi Zhengli is seen touring her lab with Peter Daszak back in 2014[/caption] In the early days of the pandemic, Shi sequenced the virus and a critical role in the story of CovidDaszak, who testified before Congress last year, admitted China’s biosafety rules were weaker than America’s — and said he lacked access to key genomic data from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
He has fiercely denied any link between EcoHealth and the outbreak, branding lab-leak theorists “conspiracy theorists” — a stance echoed by Fauci.
But the Department of Defense’s own watchdog found the US has struggled to track how much gain-of-function research it’s helped fund — citing “significant limitations” and noting such work could qualify as “offensive biological” research.
An audit sparked by Sen. Joni Ernst found at least seven grants worth more than $15.5 million were channelled through subrecipients to Chinese or other foreign labs.
The Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency handed over another $46.7 million to EcoHealth Alliance alone.
“I have been fighting for years to end the insane practice of sending tax dollars to China for sketchy pseudoscience,” said Ernst.
“Thankfully, President Trump is ending the batty experiments, like those conducted in Wuhan, that are dangerous and wasteful.”
The executive order pauses all infectious pathogen and toxin research until a new enforcement policy is drawn up by Office of Science and Technology boss Michael Kratsios and acting National Security adviser Marco Rubio.
It also comes just days after the US released a bombshell new website on Covid origins – pointing the finger squarely at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In a desperate propaganda push, China hit back last week with a bizarre White Paper claiming the virus may have started in the US — accusing America of “spreading misinformation” and “scapegoating” Beijing for its own failures.
The document insists Covid “might have emerged in the United States earlier than its officially-claimed timeline” and slams the US for “indifference and delayed actions.”
But the evidence — and global pressure — continues to mount.
“This is a great win for the American people and common sense,” said Ernst.
“I will continue working to expose and halt all taxpayer-funded risky research of pandemic potential in malign foreign countries!”
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