Lafayette Reporter

Senator John Kennedy has applauded the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for its decision to debar and withdraw funding from EcoHealth Alliance and its president, Dr. Peter Daszak. This action relates to their purported involvement in gain-of-function research conducted in Wuhan, China, which has been implicated as a cause of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sen. Kennedy remarked, "Many commentators and many news accounts say that what Dr. Daszak—with the money from American taxpayers that he had gotten from Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins—what they were doing was conducting gain-of-function research." He highlighted that this type of research involves genetically altering an animal virus, particularly a bat virus, to make it capable of infecting humans.

While Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Francis Collins, and Dr. Daszak have denied such research occurred, Kennedy noted that multiple intelligence agencies disagree. "The FBI says it did. The CIA says it did. The top spy agency in Germany says it did. The Department of Energy says it did," he stated.

According to Kennedy, initial COVID-19 cases linked back to workers in the Wuhan laboratory. He detailed, "We do know that the first two people that we know of in the world who got the coronavirus—the first two humans—were not people in the city of Wuhan; they were workers in the Wuhan lab."

Kennedy also mentioned that when the outbreak began, Dr. Fauci contacted Dr. Daszak. Following this, Daszak reportedly attempted to promote a narrative that COVID-19 originated naturally. "We also know that Dr. Daszak was trying to convince the American people and the people of the world that the virus started naturally," said Kennedy, referencing a push to publish articles supporting this claim.

The HHS decision on January 17, 2025, resulted in a five-year funding withdrawal and debarment of EcoHealth Alliance and Dr. Daszak. HHS concluded they had breached their grant terms by enhancing bat coronaviruses, increasing their infectiousness significantly in lab mice.

Further, several global intelligence agencies, including the FBI and CIA, maintain that the COVID-19 pandemic likely started in Wuhan’s lab. Kennedy commented on the decision's implications, stating, "It took a while, and some will call this only partial justice, but we now have justice—at least for 5 years."