The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has officially suspended and debarred Dr. Peter Daszak for five years from participating in federal procurement programs due to his role as former president and CEO of EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. (EHA). This decision, announced on January 17, 2025, follows a Suspension and Proposed Debarment Notice issued nearly a year earlier, on May 15, 2024. In addition to Daszak’s suspension, EcoHealth Alliance itself has also been debarred from federal procurement programs.
The suspension of Daszak’s funding is based on evidence uncovered by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. According to a Jan. 17 press release from House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), EcoHealth “terminated Dr. Daszak’s employment effective January 6, 2025.” Comer stated that Daszak and EcoHealth used “taxpayer funds to facilitate dangerous gain-of-function research in China.”
A final report released in May 2024 by Chairman Brad Wenstrup of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (SSCP) outlined significant violations by EcoHealth Alliance. The report revealed that “EcoHealth repeatedly breached the terms of its NIH grant, routinely ignored government oversight requests, and failed to report dangerous gain-of-function experiments conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).”
According to the report, EcoHealth also submitted a required research report two years late. HHS cited these findings as key reasons for the formal debarment of both EcoHealth and Dr. Daszak. The report emphasized that, given the strong likelihood that a lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research contributed to the emergence of COVID-19, EcoHealth and its former president should never again receive U.S. taxpayer funds. Chairman Wenstrup explained that EcoHealth Alliance
repeatedly violated the terms of its NIH grant. EcoHealth routinely ignored government oversight requests, failed to report dangerous gain-of-function experiments conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and produced a required research report two years late. HHS cited all of these discoveries as key reasons for formally debarring EcoHealth and Dr. Daszak. Given that a lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely origin of COVID-19, EcoHealth and its former President should never again receive a single cent from the U.S. taxpayer.
The SSCP’s final report includes “firsthand testimony and primary source documents” demonstrating that Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance were “bad actors” who “acted with contempt for the American people.” This investigation focused on EcoHealth Alliance’s NIAID grant R01AI110964, known as “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”
As a result of their investigation, Wenstrup and the SSCP established five specific findings:
- EcoHealth submitted its Year 5 Report “nearly two years late,” falsely claiming, without evidence, “that it was locked out of an NIH system and blocked from submitting the report on time.”
- EcoHealth failed to report its “potentially dangerous experiment conducted by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV),” violating the terms and conditions of the grant.
- EcoHealth “used taxpayer dollars to facilitate gain-of-function (GoF) research on coronaviruses” at the WIV, “contrary to previous public statements, including those by Dr. Anthony Fauci.”
- NIH was alerted to the actions of EcoHealth because of “proper interventions by former-President Donald Trump and former-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.”
- Dr. Daszak omitted the crucial fact that unanalyzed samples and sequences, funded by U.S. taxpayers, were in WIV’s custody when negotiating the reinstatement of EcoHealth’s grant in 2023. Had the National Institutes of Health (NIH) known about the status of these samples, the grant likely would not have been reinstated. Additionally, WIV was debarred, in part, for failing to produce laboratory notebooks that would have documented the virus samples and sequences.
February 2022 Interview With Former EcoHealth Alliance Executive Dr. Andrew Huff
In early 2022, I interviewed Dr. Andrew Huff, a former associate vice president and whistleblower at EcoHealth Alliance. Huff exposed what he described as “numerous unethical and criminal behaviors” within the organization. He also speculated that Daszak “could be a double agent working on behalf of the Chinese government,” noting that Daszak appeared indifferent to the risks associated with conducting gain-of-function research and other high-risk laboratory work in China.
Huff also provided Daszak’s InQTel pitch deck PowerPoint presentation, entitled “Identifying Predictable Patterns in Disease Emergence,” as potential evidence of Daszak’s alleged association with the CIA. Huff said Daszak admitted he was working for the CIA. InQTel is the CIA’s venture capital arm, a fact well known in the Intelligence Community.
Huff found it “strange” that such high-risk work was being conducted in China. He raised ethical concerns about EcoHealth, stating that it had deviated from its stated mission of conservation under Daszak’s leadership. “EcoHealth was not collecting the right data,” Huff explained, “nor was it using the proper methods or models to forecast or prevent pandemics as outlined in its mission.”
Instead, Huff argued that EcoHealth had become involved in a “glorified intelligence collection scheme” that gave China the better end of a deal. EcoHealth’s activities allowed China access to cutting-edge U.S. biotechnology, while the U.S. fruitlessly hoped for “transparent access” to Chinese lab activities as evidenced by WIV’s failure to produce its lab books.
Most gain-of-function research is considered dual-use research of concern (DURC) because it involves pathogens that carry significant biosafety and biosecurity risks. Specifically, gain-of-function research makes viruses more transmissible or more pathogenic.
Many also believe that gain-of-function research should be classified as bioweapons research. In a February 14, 2022 Twitter post, Huff reiterated his concerns about the containability of gain-of-function research, stating that “GoF research does not follow natural evolution and is very difficult to contain.”
Huff also noted that Daszak seemed “overly interested” in securing NIAID funding, which he said “would justify research into diseases that could promote vaccine development,” as was the case with the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. He expressed deep concerns about the safety and security of gain-of-function research, both in China and the U.S.
Predicting viral evolution is almost impossible, according to Huff. He referenced the now-defunct USAID Predict program (2019) as a primary driver of global surveillance efforts aimed at monitoring zoonotic diseases. Its goal was to improve global health outcomes. The program, which had partnered with EcoHealth Alliance, appears to have been conveniently absorbed into the “One Health Workforce–Next Gen” program.
Huff criticized the focus on gain-of-function research as a means of developing treatments or vaccines, stating, “Developing treatments from GoF R&D has proven to be ineffective.” Even after the final subcommittee report, a troubling question remains: why did Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance allegedly attempt to conceal the details and purpose of such risky, seemingly unproductive research?
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