The United States has funded a number of Chinese entities using taxpayer money through the National Institutes for Health (NIH) in the name of health research for quite some time, a report reveals.
A shocking report from The Sun revealed that research institutions, laboratories, and universities have been partaking in America's yearly budget of $40 billion to fund "various different experiments and research projects." Millions of U.S. taxpayer money --amounting to a total $27M-- is now revealed to have been sent by the NIH to China and it has been happening since 2010.
The news comes in the heels of major backlash hurled at NIH by critics after the institution was fund to have released funds that were funneled to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the laboratory that is at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic and the alleged source of the coronavirus that has taken millions of lives across the world.
NIH data revealed that several Chinese institutions received up to $2 million from U.S. taxpayer money annually through multiple grants. This information comes from the "publicly available data filed on the department's Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools system."
The NIH sent millions of U.S. taxpayer money to China to fund its research institutions and these were funneled into smaller amounts such as $88,686 and $93,316 for the investigation of drug use among female Chinese prostitutes. Another $50,066 was spent on "human fear" studies conducted by the Peking University in which study subjects were showed scary images, while $53,460 was spent to study depression among Chinese care home residents.
Among other institutions that received U.S. taxpayer money via the NIH are Peking University, Fudan University and Wuhan University. The report found that the NIH sent millions of U.S. taxpayer money to China in 2010 to 2011, amounting to $4.5 million and $4.1 million, respectively. In addition, communist China continued to receive $1 million in 2020 despite the friction between them and the U.S. that was caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the report, the Wuhan lab at the center of the coronavirus pandemic investigation was funded with U.S. taxpayer money by a larger grant that was given to the U.S.-based EcoHealth Alliance, a sum that was not included in the $27 million figure that was uncovered in the investigation. EcoHealth Alliance is headed by Peter Daszak, which is also the only American member of the World Health Organization (WHO) team that conducted an investigation as to whether the Wuhan lab was indeed the source of the coronavirus.
According to The New York Post, this Wuhan virology lab has been "authorized" to receive millions of U.S. taxpayer money "for animal research through 2024," a fact that leaders are now strongly opposed to. White Coat Waste, a taxpayer watchdog group headed by Anthony Bellotti, has rallied for the defunding EcoHealth Alliance.
"Shipping millions of US tax dollars to the dangerous Wuhan animal lab and other facilities in China where there's no real transparency and accountability about how the money is spent is a recipe for disaster," Belotti said. Republican Representative Guy Reschenthaler agreed.
"It is unconscionable that the National Institutes of Health sent US taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a facility linked to military biological research and the Chinese Communist Party," Rep. Reschenthaler said. He further requested an investigation into the "NIH's disturbing relationship with WIV."
