It sounds like a script in a science fiction movie, but it’s not: Emails obtained by The Intercept show that the National Institutes of Health worked together with one of its grantees, EcoHealth, to evade gain-of-function (GOF) research restrictions.

While EcoHealth’s plans for the research “triggered concerns at NIH,” staff went ahead and “adopted language that EcoHealth Alliance crafted” so the work could go on. The Intercept added that none of the featured experiments could have triggered the current pandemic, but the idea of the deceptive move shows what persons in a position of authority at the highest levels will do to circumvent safety rules and regulations.

The violations were serious enough to spark concerns from Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. “The discussions reveal that neither party is taking the risks sufficiently seriously,” Bloom told The Intercept.

Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, minced no words with his opinion on what happened. “It’s absolutely outrageous,” Wain-Hobson said. “The NIH is bending over backward to help people it’s funded. It isn’t clear that the NIH is protecting the U.S. taxpayer.”

https://theintercept.com/2021/11/03/coronavirus-research-ecohealth-nih-emails/