HHS has plans to debar the infectious disease nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance from being awarded federal funds due to lack of "responsibility."
The letter to EHA President Peter Daszak, signed by HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisitions Katrina Brisbon, outlines a conflict between the nonprofit and National Institutes of Health over acquiring documents and records from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to which the EHA had awarded federal funding for studying chimeric viruses. Critics have questioned whether the Institute's research may have led to a lab-leak that caused the global pandemic, and EHA has maintained that the research could not have done so.
The letter outlines instances throughout the pandemic where EHA's assertions regarding the Institute's research did not align with experts and points where the nonprofit failed to provide requested records. The letter accuses EHA with lack of oversight of its grant recipients, failure to submit progress reports on time, failure to notify NIH when viruses studied grew beyond permitted threshold and inability to disprove they violated the terms of the grant.
"A thorough investigation determined that there is adequate evidence that EHA has not been compliant with federal regulations and grant terms and conditions, which affects EHA's present responsibility," an HHS spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. "As a grantee administrator, EHA's role is to provide oversight of the activities of its subawardees, including reporting requirements back to the National Institutes of Health (and other federal government agencies), to ensure compliance with all grant terms and conditions and federal regulations. The record establishes EHA did not fulfill these responsibilities."
The debarment took effect May 15, one day before Lawrence Tabak, principal deputy director of NIH, was scheduled to testify before a subcommittee on "discrepancies" between what NIH officials and EHA have said in previous testimonies, according to The Hill.
EHA said in a statement to The Hill that "EcoHealth Alliance is disappointed by HHS' decision today and we will be contesting the proposed debarment. We disagree strongly with the decision and will present evidence to refute each of these allegations and to show that NIH's continued support of EcoHealth Alliance is in the public interest."