Why Did the NIH Fund Wuhan Labs?

By Daniel John Sobieski

Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz has asked an obvious question, one that has not come up at the daily White House coronavirus press briefing -- why is the Wuhan Virology Lab a grantee of the National Institutes if Health, whose National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) -- headed by one Dr. Anthony Fauci -- and a recipient of $3.7 million to study coronavirus in bats? Gaetz has gone beyond mere curiosity,  writing a letter to HHS Secretary Azar demanding the grant be terminated:

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., called on Health & Human Services Secretary Alex Azar Tuesday to cease funding a research grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, telling "Tucker Carlson Tonight" the action could be accomplished "with the stroke of a pen."

"I'm against funding Chinese research in our country, but I'm sure against funding it in China," Gaetz said. "The NIH [National Institutes of Health] gives a $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology [and] they then advertise that they need coronavirus researchers and following that, coronavirus erupts in Wuhan."…

"What's really troubling to me is either conspicuously or miraculously the Wuhan Institute of Virology is able to sequence the virus on January 2 but China doesn't admit to the virus existing until January 9 and then the Wuhan Institute of Virology doesn't release this important scientific information to the world until January 12," Gaetz said.

"So at best, Americans are funding people who are lying to us and at worst, we're funding people who we knew had problems handling pathogens, who then birthed a monster virus onto the world," he added.

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