Trump restricts funding for controversial Gain of Function research overseas

WASHINGTON (TNND) — President Trump signed an Executive Order Monday prohibiting federal funds from being used for the controversial research known as "Gain of Function" in countries where sufficient oversight is not possible.

The Executive Order:

• Ends any present and all future Federal funding of dangerous gain-of-function research in countries of concern like China and Iran and in foreign nations deemed to have insufficient research oversight.
• Empowers American research agencies to identify and end Federal funding of other biological research that could pose a threat to American public health, public safety, or national security.
• Prohibits Federal funding from contributing to foreign research likely to cause another pandemic. These measures will drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology.
• Protects Americans from lab accidents and other biosecurity incidents, such as those that likely caused COVID-19 and the 1977 Russian flu.

During his signing in the Oval Office, Trump said, “It’s a big deal. It could’ve been that we wouldn’t have had the problem that we had.”

The problem he was referring to is the COVID-19 Pandemic, which he and his team of top doctors believe likely started due to a lab leak, stemming from Gain of Function research taking place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.

Among those applauding the decision, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the new Director of the National Institutes of Health.

The conduct of this dangerous gain-of-function research, which aims at taking pathogens and making them more virulent, more transmissible in humans, many scientists believe is responsible for the COVID pandemic," he said.

"Any nation that engages in this research endangers their own population as well as the world, as we saw during the COVID pandemic," he added.

New FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary agreed.

It's crazy to think that this entire nightmare was probably the result of some scientists messing with Mother Nature in a laboratory with technology exported from the United States.”

For the last few years, the research has taken center stage on Capitol Hill, often the subject of fiery exchanges between Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and former Chief Medical Adviser to President Joe Biden.

During testimony on Capitol Hill on July 20, 2021, Fauci pushed back against allegations that Gain of Function research could have caused COVID.

"This paper that you’re referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function,” he said.

Sen. Paul interrupted, “You take an animal virus and you increase the transmissibility to humans and you’re saying that’s not gain of function? "

"That is correct," Dr. Fauci said, adding, "Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly.”

There are some concerns being raised about banning this research in any sort of widespread manner. Critics say that the next time a major new virus starts to spread, we may not have the data we need to fight it.