Comer Applauds President Trump’s Executive Order Banning Dangerous, Taxpayer-Funded Gain-of-Function Research

Evidence shows U.S. funded gain of function research on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China ignited deadly pandemic  

WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today applauded President Donald Trump’s executive order banning federal funding for gain-of-function research:

“A two-year investigation by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic exposed how the Biden Administration and Dr. Anthony Fauci allowed taxpayer dollars to fund risky and secretive gain-of-function research around the world, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Every American should be outraged that their hard-earned tax dollars were used by mad scientists to engineer more deadly and transmissible coronaviruses. I applaud President Trump for banning taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research government-wide. This administration is working to ensure the health and safety of all Americans, and this decisive action could prevent the next pandemic from spilling out of a lab. COVID-19 has shown us that laboratories are not immune to accidents or leaks, and the potential consequences of another such incident could be catastrophic. The American people ultimately deserve science that protects them, not taxpayer-funded experiments that put all their lives at risk,” said Chairman Comer.

In 2023, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic launched an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether any U.S. taxpayer dollars funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s (WIV) dangerous gain-of-function research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded EcoHealth Alliance Inc. (EcoHealth) in 2014 a $3.7 million grant to study bat coronaviruses. In May 2024, Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup released evidence showing EcoHealth repeatedly violated the terms of its NIH grant. The evidence revealed EcoHealth routinely ignored government oversight requests, failed to report dangerous gain-of-function experiments being conducted in Wuhan, and produced a required research report two years late. 

In January 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cut off all funding and formally debarred EcoHealth and its former President, Dr. Peter Daszak, for five years based on the evidence produced by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

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