House leadership indicates a probe into COVID origins is coming
There’s a new sheriff in town in Congress after House Republicans finally landed on Kevin McCarthy to serve as the Speaker of the House. And now that the GOP has control of this legislative body, the agenda is shaping up to look quite a bit different than the past couple of years.
The House spent much of that time focusing on investigations into the January 6th riot at the Capitol, an event that much of America would rather forget and that has little ongoing bearing on the country’s well-being. This was a pet project and fundraising cash cow for Democrats, but let’s be honest, it was a total waste of time.
Fortunately the new leadership has indicated it will begin looking into matters that actually do impact Americans, and most pressing among those is an investigation into the origins of COVID-19. Specifically, McCarthy, along with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, have announced a probe into whether the pandemic was caused by an accident at the Wuhan animal lab.
It’s about time.
We know the US was funding the Wuhan lab. We know the US was breaking its own rules and funding dangerous gain-of-function research in the Wuhan lab. And at this point, the majority of Americans believe COVID-19 was a result of a lab leak in the Wuhan lab. It’s high time we got answers—not only so those responsible can be held accountable, but also so we can ensure this type of thing never happens again if we were responsible.
The White Coat Waste Project (WCW), where I am a Fellow, is a free market animal welfare organization that seeks to end the taxpayer funding of tortuous (and dangerous) animal experiments. Through this advocacy, they were the ones that initially discovered the NIH’s funding of the Wuhan lab (they were using a pass through nonprofit to do it). They have been spearing-heading the advocacy for a US-led probe of how COVID-19 started and its connection to NIH-funded animal experiments ever since.
“As the first organization to expose how taxpayer money was secretively shipped by the NIH to the Wuhan lab for dangerous coronavirus gain-of-function experiments on animals in violation of a federal ban, we applaud the newly installed House leadership for promising to finally investigate the origins of COVID,” said Justin Goodman, the Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at the White Coat Waste Project.
“Congress, the FBI, a majority of Democrat and Republican taxpayers, and experts around the world believe that a lab leak caused COVID. Taxpayers have a right to know if white coats in Wuhan wasted their money on risky animal experiments that sparked a devastating pandemic. We’re also continuing our work with Congress to defund dangerous animal labs at home and abroad to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” Goodman continued.
This work has already led to the first-ever legislation defunding dangerous virus experiments in animal labs in "countries of concern,”—an initiative that was supported by both Democrats and Republicans. But there is still so much work to be done.
Let’s hope these Republicans mean business, and let’s hope some Democrats join them. Anyone who cares about the treatment of animals, the safety of the American people, and the rule of law should easily be on board with this kind of investigation.
Hannah Cox is a Fellow for the White Coat Waste Project
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