Trump’s Budget Calls for $17 Billion Cut to NIH, Citing Lax Oversight of Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan; CDC Foundation hit by layoffs, and other C-Virus related stories

By admin On May 9, 2025

Trump’s Budget Calls for $17 Billion Cut to NIH, Citing Lax Oversight of Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan

The White House budget plan says the agency’s failure to prove it was not complicit in a possible lab leak shows it’s “too big and unfocused.”

The White House budget calls for slashing $17 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), citing the agency’s failure to properly monitor risky gain-of-function research it funded at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)—where the COVID-19 pandemic plausibly originated.

“While evidence of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic leaking from a laboratory is now confirmed by several intelligence agencies, the NIH’s inability to prove that its grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology were not complicit in such a possible leak, or get data and hold recipients of Federal funding accountable is evidence that NIH has grown too big and unfocused,” reads the budget summary released on Friday.

Shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the CIA produced a new assessment saying that the agency now favors a lab leak explanation of the pandemic’s origins.

The FBI and the Energy Department have also said they favor the lab leak theory, as does Germany’s intelligence agency.

NIH has come under intense scrutiny for lax oversight of gain-of-function research it funded at the WIV via its grantee, the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance.

In the years preceding the pandemic, NIH continued funding EcoHealth’s gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, despite White House policies either freezing funding for that type of work or requiring it to undergo more serious scrutiny. It also failed to follow up with EcoHealth when it missed a deadline to submit progress reports on its work at WIV on the eve of the pandemic.

Lab leak proponents point to this work, which involved creating viruses with enhanced potential to infect human cells, as likely seeding the creation of the pandemic at the WIV.

The Biden administration suspended EcoHealth Alliance, and its now-former president Peter Daszak from receiving federal funding in 2024, citing its lax oversight of its subgrantees in Wuhan. —>READ MORE HERE

CDC Foundation hit by layoffs:

The CDC Foundation, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that bolsters the work of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, laid off 32 people Thursday — adding to about 90 workers who lost their jobs a month ago.

The layoffs followed nationwide cuts to public health funding under the Trump administration.

The CDC Foundation was established by Congress to be a force multiplier for the CDC, through partnerships. It brings in new money from outside donations, and does additional health-related projects with outside partner organizations.

The foundation employs about 800 people, many of whom work around the nation on health projects or in health departments.

According to its most recent financial report, the foundation raised $230 million in 2023 with about $138 million of that from the federal government.

Foundation spokesperson Pierce Nelson emphasized in written statements to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the foundation’s workforce has ebbed and flowed over the years, along with funding. Nelson confirmed the recent layoffs, but said that the current workforce is down from about 4,000 at its height during the pandemic.

“Going forward, we are poised to continue work with our donors and partners as we provide vital support to our nation’s public health system, which is there to protect everyone in every community,” Nelson said.