Exclusive: Joni Ernst Joins Watchdog Group to End U.S. Funding of ‘Cruel and Dangerous Animal Experiments’ in Wuhan Lab

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Justin Goodman of the White Coat Waste Project joined Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow to discuss U.S. taxpayer funding of virology research involving animal experimentation at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Ernst addressed her partnership with the White Coat Waste Project.

“The White Coat waste project is really targeting the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which we know to be at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic,” she remarked. “U.S. Taxpayer money has been funneled to the Wuhan Institute through a nonprofit known as EcoHealth Alliance to fund dangerous coronavirus studies.”

She added, “What we are working on is blocking funding from ever going to the Wuhan Institute of Virology ever again, but then, also holding those accountable for not following federal guidelines, federal laws, and being transparent in how those grant dollars were spent.”

Goodman described animal experimentation in the Wuhan lab as “cruel” and “dangerous.”

“The White Coat Waste Project is a taxpayer watchdog group,” he stated, “and we’re primarily concerned with the $20 billion a year that the federal government wastes on cruel and dangerous animal experiments, like the stuff we’re talking about in Wuhan.”

He continued, “Last April, we were the first to discover and connect the dots between what was happening at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the fact that they were receiving something from the NIH [National Institutes of Health] to the tune of at least $600,000, and we know now that was likely going to be closer for $1.5 million had Donald Trump not cut the grant.”

“We’ve been working to not only expose the connection between the NIH and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but also support Sen. Ernst’s work to cut the funding,” he added.

EcoHealth Alliance, ostensibly a nonprofit organization, was used as an intermediary for U.S. taxpayer money to China’s virology laboratory in Wuhan, Goodman noted. He observed how such layered funding diminishes transparency of how government funds are dispensed. 

EcoHealth Alliance’s role as a go-between for taxpayer money sent to a laboratory run by the Chinese Communist Party made it “so damn hard to figure out that [taxpayer] money was going to Wuhan,” Goodman shared.

Goodman added, “EcoHealth Alliance [is] run by a scam artist named Peter Daszak.”

He explained. “[EcoHealth Alliance] were breaking federal law by not properly disclosing that they were sending money to this lab or how much money they were sending there, both in public statements — which is required by law; they have to say that they’re funding this lab and how much money they’re sending there — and they were not reporting to the NIH that they were sending these grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which brings a second law.”

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