Coronavirus researchers must examine Trump-backed conspiracy—or lose funding

Enlarge / The Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on April 17, 2020. (credit: Getty | Hector Retamal)

A New York-based nonprofit that has worked for decades to better understand and prevent the type of coronavirus pandemic now engulfing the world was abruptly stripped of its federal research funding in April. The White House specifically directed the National Institutes of Health to cancel the multimillion-dollar research grant after President Donald Trump promoted an unfounded conspiracy theory that the pandemic coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was released from a lab in Wuhan, China—a lab that collaborates with the nonprofit.

Now, the NIH has told the nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance, that it may have its funding back—if it collects and hands over materials and information about the Chinese lab, which is part of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

In a July 8 letter seen by The Wall Street Journal, the NIH laid out a list of seven criteria EcoHealth Alliance must fulfill in order to regain its peer-reviewed funding. The list includes: