Despite longstanding warnings about China's alleged illicit biological weapons program, the U.S. military is still unable to confirm whether American tax dollars are funding research in China that could enhance the lethality of pathogens, according to a recent report by the Pentagon’s inspector general.
The Department of Defense (DoD) has not tracked its funding in sufficient detail to determine whether money has been provided to Chinese research laboratories or other foreign entities for research that could potentially increase the danger of pathogens, the report reveals.
This lack of transparency persists two years after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted that defense officials could not account for how biological research funds sent to China were being utilized. The inspector general's findings have intensified calls in Congress to ban the Pentagon from funding “gain-of-function” research in foreign countries. This type of research involves modifying microorganisms to increase their transmissibility and virulence.
Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has been at the forefront of efforts to require the DoD to account for its financial dealings with China and to prohibit spending on research that makes viruses and bacteria more contagious or lethal. Last year, she successfully included a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act mandating the inspector general's review.
The White Coat Waste Project, a nonprofit organization advocating against dangerous and wasteful scientific research, has criticized the Pentagon's oversight. Justin Goodman, the group's senior vice president, stated that the loosely monitored funding could support bioweapons development under the guise of biodefense, financed by U.S. taxpayers.
For two years, the GAO has reported the limitations in federal subaward reporting requirements that obscure the full extent of U.S. funding provided to Chinese entities. The inspector general's report noted that while Pentagon officials claimed they did not knowingly fund research that could enhance pathogens, the lack of rigorous tracking means they cannot be certain.
The U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command identified seven agreements that involved potential enhancement of pathogens in foreign countries but maintained that the research did not necessarily increase pathogenic potential. This level of imprecision is alarming, given repeated warnings from U.S. intelligence about China's bioweapons program.
The U.S. first asserted in a 2005 State Department document that China maintained an offensive biological weapons program in violation of international treaties, run in part by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS). Later medical publications linked AMMS to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab now believed by several U.S. intelligence agencies to be the source of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Wuhan lab received grants from contractors working for Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). These connections were publicly documented well before the pandemic.
A 2015 study on the NIH's National Library of Medicine website shows collaboration between the Wuhan lab and AMMS on anthrax spores. Subsequent studies from 2015 to 2019 also listed both Chinese institutions as collaborators.
One particularly concerning link, highlighted in a December report by the House Intelligence Committee, is a 2015 book published by AMMS scientists. The book, “The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Artificial Humanized Viruses as Genetic Weapons,” suggests that SARS-CoV-1 was engineered as a genetic weapon and discusses the broader use of chimeric coronaviruses in biowarfare.
The Pentagon's inspector general report underscores the urgent need for stricter oversight and transparency in funding foreign research, particularly in nations with suspected bioweapons programs.
Read the report here.
