Biden chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told lawmakers during a Tuesday Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that the National Institute of Health (NIH) did pay for the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct research on bat coronaviruses. However, the New York Post says, Fauci flatly denied any gain of function studies were conducted. Fauci said this after initially disavowing claims the agency subsidized any coronavirus research with the Wuhan lab.

However, seven years ago, an arm of the NIH gave the EcoHealth Alliance a $3.7 million grant to study coronavirus emergence from bats. The group paid the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to do work that included funding of gain of function studies. A more recent manuscript published last year in Australia reveals that COVID-19 appeared to have been manipulated in a Wuhan laboratory and the scientist who specialized in bat coronaviruses, Shi Zhengli, has experience in gain of function research.

The EcoHealth Alliance is headed by Peter Daszak who has a history of supporting gain of function research on coronaviruses. Interestingly enough, a scientist named Marion Koopmans, who was part of the WHO investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, is an associate of Peter Daszak. Koopmans admitted a year ago that Chinese labs were involved in coronavirus manipulation experiments which involves gain of function research and is also the basis of the lab-leak theory.