Wenstrup: Americans Have Serious Concerns with NIH’s Grant Awarding, Oversight Procedures

WASHINGTON — Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) opened today’s hearing titled “Overseeing the Overseers: A Hearing with NIH Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak” by highlighting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) decision yesterday to immediately implement a government-wide suspension on all funds allocated to EcoHealth Alliance (EcoHealth) and begin official debarment proceedings against the organization. This decision was partially based on evidence released in the Select Subcommittee’s interim staff report which detailed EcoHealth’s willful violation of its National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant and its facilitation of dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China. During his opening remarks, Chairman Wenstrup noted that Americans have serious concerns regarding the processes in which NIH awards federal grants and conducts oversight of said grants due to its failure to protect the taxpayer from EcoHealth’s impropriety. The Chairman describes a series of conflicting testimonies related to late grant reporting, interactions with the WIV, and federal record keeping laws that must be addressed by Dr. Tabak today. The Select Subcommittee is committed to ensuring that NIH improves both its grant awarding processes and its oversight of federal grants before a future public health crisis begins.

Below are Select Subcommittee Chairman Wenstrup’s remarks as prepared for delivery:

Good morning.

I would first like to highlight the action taken by NIH and HHS yesterday to immediately suspend and propose debarment of EcoHealth Alliance.

The Select Subcommittee, while investigating the origins of COVID-19, uncovered multiple instances of wrongdoing by both EcoHealth and its President Dr. Peter Daszak.

EcoHealth faces an immediate governmentwide suspension and hold on all taxpayer funds pending a formal debarment investigation.

I said it before, but our investigation into EcoHealth and Dr. Daszak’s actions is not over.

Dr. Daszak owes us documents and explanations for what appears to be lies before this Subcommittee.

Today we will hear from Dr. Lawrence Tabak, Principal Deputy Director and former Acting Director of the National Institutes of Health.

The Select Subcommittee has serious concerns regarding the processes in which NIH awards federal grants and conducts oversight of these grants.

EcoHealth and its subgrantee, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, highlighted numerous inadequacies in the NIH grant management and oversight process.

This is especially true regarding oversight of gain-of-function work on potential pathogens, pandemic capable or otherwise.

Oversight of grant management is crucial, regardless of anyone’s “operative definition” of gain of function.

But when the United States government is actively funding research in this area, as we saw with EcoHealth and the WIV, we need to have the highest possible standards.

Unfortunately, there does not appear to have been adequate oversight of EcoHealth and its experiments.

This issue has highlighted broader concerns with the NIH—especially that it is up to the grantee to oversee themselves.

That is a recipe for waste, fraud, abuse, and deception.

We’ve heard conflicting testimony regarding late grant reporting, the dates experiments were conducted, the interactions with the Wuhan Institute, whether grant terms actually applied or not.

We’ve uncovered outrageous conduct—like intentionally using personal email to avoid FOIA or deleting federal records—from a senior NIAID official, Dr. David Morens.

Put Simply, Dr. Tabak, the Select Subcommittee has serious concerns regarding the NIH’s ability to conduct necessary and proper oversight of its grant processes by what seems to be its current grant process construct.

The American people pay for this scientific research and the research needs to be for the benefit of the American people, first and foremost.

We hope we can put forth some solutions to help.

Unfortunately, as EcoHealth President Dr. Peter Daszak made the Select fully aware during a hearing earlier this month, such oversight and responsibility is not always in place.

In securing your testimony today, Dr. Tabak, NIH assured the Select Subcommittee that you would be able to speak to these issues on behalf of your agency.

NIH insisted we did not need to have a hearing with Dr. Lauer—the NIH official in charge of compliance—because you would be knowledgeable on these matters.

In anticipation of this hearing, the Select Subcommittee provided you with a list of specific issues that require answers.

The Select Subcommittee has been entirely open and transparent in what it requires of the NIH – We expect that same courtesy today.

Forward looking policy recommendations require us to review what went wrong in the first place.

Without our extensive report on EcoHealth, I don’t believe that HHS would have been able to propose debarment, and we are very happy the Department accepted our recommendation.

While we acknowledge HHS’ actions with respect to EcoHealth, more work needs to be done.

How do we prevent this from happening again?

While I understand the temptation to simply ‘look forward,’ we cannot learn how to prevent and respond to the next pandemic if we do not learn any lessons from the last one.

I appreciated my Democratic colleagues’ assistance in demanding answers from EcoHealth. Our actions have led to real change and a benefit to the American people.

I hope you all will join me again today in examining what we can do better going forward.

I look forward to a robust and on-topic discussion. Thank you. 

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