Republicans pitch ban on funding for animal research by US foes

Congressional Republicans are trying to ensure a repeat of the mistakes at the Wuhan Institute of Virology never happens again.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) and Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) introduced legislation last week to prohibit US taxpayer dollars from funding research in nations that are considered adversaries, including Russia and China.

The Department of Health and Human Services has already suspended funding to the WIV, but the bill titled “Accountability in Foreign Animal Research” would make the halt permanent and go even further.

“We successfully pulled the plug on US taxpayer funding to China’s state-run Wuhan Institute — for now,” Ernst exclusively told The Post.

“The truth is, the Wuhan Lab should never have received a penny from the US in support of the [Chinese Communist Party]’s malign influence in the first place, and something must change so Washington does not fund the pet projects of our adversaries again.”

Sen. Joni Ernst has backed various forms of legislation aimed at preventing another Wuhan Lab situation from taking place.

There are at least 27 facilities in China that are still eligible to receive government funds for potential animal experimentation, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The Wuhan Institute, which is located in the city where the world-shuttering virus was first detected, is home to researchers known to have performed gain-of-function studies on bat coronaviruses.

Moreover, a US intelligence report suggested that at least three researchers from the lab fell ill in the fall of 2019 with symptoms eerily similar to COVID-19, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Scientists are split over whether the highly contagious COVID-19 respiratory illness originated from a lab leak or natural transmission spillover.

Government agencies are also at loggerheads on the issue.

But despite being initially spurned, the so-called lab leak theory has gained traction over recent months.

Earlier this year, the Department of Energy, which is in charge of a network of national labs, shifted its assessment to a “low confidence” belief that the virus stemmed from a lab.

The FBI has expressed a similar view.

Nations defined as adversarial in the new bill include China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

“No American tax dollars should ever go to funding research on animals in foreign countries, especially adversarial countries,” McClain said in a statement. “We know what happened when we funded research labs in Wuhan, and it’s time we stop this dangerous funding once and for all.”

Rep. Lisa McClain (right) helped introduce the House version of the bill.

Ernst has previously undertaken efforts to ensure that the Wuhan Institute is permanently cut off from US funds.

She also pushed for an inquiry that found New York-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance funneled over $2 million to the Wuhan Institute for various experiments.

The bill introduced by Ernst, McClain and Davis has drawn praise from the White Coat Waste Project, a watchdog group that opposes “cruel” research on animals.

Lab research — Scientific literature on the pandemic generally favors natural spillover rather than a lab leak, but critics have questioned whether financial incentives affect their judgment.

“Shipping taxpayer dollars to animal testing labs run by our foreign adversaries is a recipe for disaster,” Justin Goodman, the organization’s senior vice president of advocacy and public policy, said in a statement.

“We’ve exposed and defunded gain-of-function experiments in Wuhan and all animal labs in Russia, including [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s cat tests, but dozens of other animal labs in China are still eligible to get more of our money.”