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Watchdog’s FOIA Finds NIH Deleted Info From Wuhan Lab on CCP Virus Genetic Sequencing

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National Institutes of Health (NIH) documents obtained by a non-profit watchdog in a federal court suit reveal the agency deleted CCP Virus genetic sequencing information from the Wuhan Institute for Virology at the Chinese lab’s request.

The Arlington, Va.-based Empower Oversight Whistleblowers and Researchers (EO) obtained as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and lawsuit more than 230 pages of documents dating from 2020, including emails, memoranda, and other correspondence, among and between the lab and multiple NIH officials.

The CCP Virus that is also known as the Novel Coronavirus was first detected in China in late 2019, then spread from there around the world. The first death from the virus in the United States was reported in January 2020, and since then more than 1 million Americans have succumbed to the virus, and in excess of six million globally.

Controversy has raged in the U.S. over whether the virus originated in an animal-to-human transfer in a Wuhan-area wet market, as Chinese officials have insisted, or if it escaped from the Wuhan lab where research was being done on such viruses, some of which was being supported with NIH funds through the New York-based non-profit EcoHealth Alliance.

Among the NIH officials prominently mentioned in the documents are then-NIH Director Francis Collins and National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci, who actively participated in the discussions and decision-making described in the materials obtained by EO.

“On June 5, 2020, a Wuhan University researcher requested that NIH retract the researcher’s submission of BioProject ID PRJNA637497 because of error. The Wuhan researcher explained ‘I’m sorry for my wrong submitting,’” EO said in a statement Tuesday.

“BioProject ID PRJNA637497 is also referred to as Submission ID SUB7554642. Three days later, on June 8th, the NIH declined the researcher’s request, advising that it prefers to edit or replace, as opposed to delete, sequences submitted to the SRA,” EO reported.

But then, on June 16, 2020, NIH officials reversed themselves and deleted the genetic sequencing data, as requested by the Wuhan researcher.

That researcher was quoted by EO as explaining to NIH that “Recently, I found that it’s hard to visit my submitted SRA data, and it would also be very difficult for me to update the data. I have submitted an updated version of this SRA data to another website, so I want to withdraw the old one at NCBI in order to avoid the data version issue.”

After some discussion about what would be deleted, the NIH concluded the discussion by reassuring the Wuhan researcher that it “had withdrawn everything.”

The documents also indicate, according to EO, that after researcher Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, “alerted NIH about the deleted sequences, [Collins] and [Fauci] hosted a Sunday afternoon Zoom meeting. The invitation that Collins sent out for the meeting asks invitees to read Bloom’s [June 22, 2021] preprint paper closely and provide their ‘advice on the interpretation and significance of’ it.”

According to EO, the documents show that “Professor Trevor Bedford of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center later sent the group an email stating that the deleted data seemed to support the idea that the pandemic began outside the Huanan market in Wuhan and that the matter must be analyzed properly.”

If the virus’ spread began outside of the market, it would undermine the official Chinese government claim, and thus reinforce claims of experts in the U.S. and elsewhere that the pandemic likely escaped from within the Wuhan lab.

The EO report also claims that NIH communications staff member were using off-the-record emails to advise “reporters toward more favorable coverage concerning termination of public access to the sequences by The Washington Post, and away from coverage by The New York Times, whose ‘tone’ had been criticized in communications among NIH officials.”

In addition, EO said NIH claims to have retained copies of the deleted data “for preservation purposes,” but the federal agency has refused to conduct a transparent examination of it.

Neither Collins nor Fauci, nor spokesmen for NIH or NIAID responded to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

The EO document release is likely to strengthen congressional efforts to get all facts concerning the NIH’s role in funding the Wuhan lab research that may be at the center of the CCP Virus creation and spread around the world.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a physician who is a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions (HELP), told The Epoch Times that “the NIH deleting key data at the onset of the pandemic has only caused more questions regarding its involvement on the emergence of” the virus.

“The American people deserve to know the truth behind the origins of COVID-19, as well as how we can best prepare for, prevent, and recover from future global pandemics. As a physician, I think we always need to know the what, where, how, and why when giving a diagnosis. For this reason, it couldn’t be more important that we get to the bottom of this deleted data and ensure that NIH operates at the interest of our national security,” Marshall continued.

The HELP panel on March 15 approved legislation—the PREVENT Pandemics Act—that requires establishment of a government task force to investigate the origins of the CCP Virus. That legislation includes eight provisions authored by Marshall.

“This legislation is in response to the congressional inquiries and various media investigations–including The Epoch Times–revealing national security issues with federal agencies authorizing dangerous research with certain foreign entities that may have contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Marshall’s office told The Epoch Times.

“Dr. Marshall secured his bipartisan 9/11-style COVID Task Force to investigate the origins of COVID-19, as well as find out how we can prepare for, prevent, and recover from future global pandemics,” the office said, adding that he seeks “to ensure that American organizations would never be allowed to conduct dangerous research capable of pandemic proportions with organizations in countries that threaten our national security.”

Another Republican senator, Joni Ernst of Iowa, proposed last November to ban all federal funding of EcoHealth Alliance and the “gain-of-function” virus research it supported with federal funds at the Wuhan lab. Other congressional Republicans have also called for a federal investigation of the non-profit.

The Epoch Times Reporter Zachary Steiber contributed to this report.

Mark Tapscott

Congressional Correspondent

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Congressional Correspondent for The Epoch Times.



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