‘Mutual distrust’: the message in the US funding cut for China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology
- The
decision to suspend grants for the institute is symbolic of the dim
prospects of US-China collaboration in the area, observers say
- It could also undermine efforts to do basic research needed to prevent a future pandemic, professor says
The US has suspended the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s access to American federal funding. Photo: AFP
A US decision to cut a Chinese virus research institute’s access to American federal funding will not affect operations but does reflect the mutual distrust between the two countries, according to health specialists.
The US Department of Health and Human Services revealed on Monday that it was suspending grants to and contracts with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, an affiliate of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, over possible biosafety violations.
The institute was the focus of unproven lab leak allegations related to the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. A declassified report from US intelligence agencies last month found no evidence that pandemic started in the institute.
The department said the action was taken because the institute failed to provide required documents such as lab notebook entries and files under the terms of grants beginning in 2014.
Jin Dongyan, a professor of biomedical science at the University of Hong Kong, said that at the time the funding was international recognition of the institute’s work.
“Now that it is cancelled, it is delivering a message of mutual distrust [between Chinese and international researchers],” Jin said.
The grant was awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the US health department, to US-based non-profit EcoHealth Alliance and distributed to the institute to explore the risk of bat coronavirus to humans.
The project began in June 2014 and was renewed five years later, only to be suspended under former US president Donald Trump in 2020.
The grant to EcoHealth Alliance was restarted in May but is subject to greater restrictions.
The department said Wednesday’s move was “necessary to mitigate any potential public health risk”.
EcoHealth Alliance did not respond to requests for comment.
Chen Xi, an associate public health professor at Yale University, said the US decision was a rare precedent but with relations between the two countries in decline in recent years, he was not surprised by it.
Chen said the effects of the cancellation of the funding could be “far-reaching” and that there had already been a “fast decline” in research collaborations between US and Chinese institutions funded by the NIH.
“It further erodes trust between the two governments and scientists in fundamental research that could prevent the next pandemic and other global health emergencies,” he said.
Huang Yanzhong, director of the Centre for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University in the US, agreed.
“Withdrawing the funding is unlikely to have a significant impact on the routine operation of the [Wuhan institute] or the Chinese medical research industry as a whole,” he said.
“However, this decision will undoubtedly send a chilling signal to future US-China biomedical cooperation.”
He agreed that it was rare for the US government to suspend funding for allegedly violating the biosafety protocol of a grant and failing to provide the required information.
He also said the decision would be unhelpful in reducing the biosafety risks of Chinese labs.
“Suspending funding to the lab may inadvertently incentivise China to seek greater independence and self-sufficiency in compliance, thereby reducing Washington’s leverage in this domain,” Huang said.
Scientific collaboration has become more difficult under the deteriorating US-China relations in recent years. The NIH, a world-leading biomedical research funding provider, has stepped up investigations into grantees who are suspected of not disclosing links to foreign institutions in China since 2018. The NIH began investigating the Wuhan lab on financial and safety issues.
The investigations and rising US-China tensions have also made scientists “felt reluctant to start new or continue existing collaborations with institutions in China”, according to a study published by Stanford University last year.
Additional reporting by Yvonne Sun
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