For several times now, the National Institutes of Health has failed to comply with congressional inquiries regarding its ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the facility at the center of the COVID lab leak theory.
Instead, NIH personnel have been ordered to "shred notes and other documents" referencing the Wuhan lab, which is run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its work with the U.S. government under the leadership of the Obama administration.
According to the National Pulse, members of the the Republican House Committee on Oversight and Reform sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Director Xavier Becerra, calling upon the agency to release the documents that are key in proving the true origins of COVID, which has caused a global pandemic and killed millions of people all over the world.
"Rather than be transparent with Committee Republicans, HHS and NIH have chosen to hide, obfuscate, and shield the truth," the letter alleged.
The Republican House Committee members said in the letter that the NIH advisor was "forced by NIH to shred notes and other documents pertaining to the WIV grants as early as 2014."
Proof of this lies in an email from one individual whose name has been redacted, to a committee staff member as recent as November 5, 2021.
It read, "I signed a confidentiality agreement in which I agreed not to discuss any grant with anyone except with other members of the study section, and - once the meeting was over - that I would destroy any notes that I had taken during the meeting (we did this by tossing them in shred box in the meeting room))."
The Republican Committee members' letter argued that "to date, HHS and NIH have refused to produce any responsive documents or information." The committee had already requested documents from former NIH Director Francis Collins about an Obama-era grant in 2014 that was given by Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology as recent as May and July 2021, way after the pandemic had began.
The Republican Committee even repeatedly amended their requests concerning documents detailing Obama-Era NIH's collaboration with the Wuhan lab, increasing the scope and making it easier for the NIh to fulfill, but both the HHS and NIH have still refused to provide any documents.
The Republican Committee underscored how since July 15, 2021, they have provided several accommodations to the HHS and NIH, including "time extensions, reducing the scope of the request, prioritizing certain documents, and engaging in in camera review of certain documents."
The letter explained that throughout the period of requests for documents detailing Obama-Era NIH's collaboration with the Wuhan lab, the committee had clarified to HHS staff that they may later on request full, unredacted copies of the documents that were reviewed in camera and all other documents involved in the requests. Yet, the agencies failed to respond.
Earlier this month, the NIH announced that a new National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is "focusing on preparing for a range of other viral threats that could cause a public health emergency" through a two-pronged Pandemic Preparedness Plan that will firstly identify "prototype pathogens" described as "viruses within viral families with the potential to cause significant human disease."
Secondly, the agency will also focus on "priority pathogens - viruses already known to be capable of causing significant human illness or death."
