Americans remain at risk from deadly, genetically engineered, lab-created pathogens. The COVID-19 pandemic, responsible for the deaths of nearly 1.2 million Americans, likely originated in a laboratory experiment that juiced the lethality and contagiousness of coronaviruses in China. Subsequently, we also learned that National Institutes of Health officials failed to monitor federal grants to institutions in China that were undoubtedly engaged in such viral experimentation to create dangerous pathogens.
Noting the NIH failures, congressional investigators emphasized the need for another layer of protection. Likewise, in February 2025, we proposed, among other things, that the Trump administration stop funding all such risky biological research, especially overseas. We also argued for a transfer of final authority to approve grants for such research from NIH to an independent commission for final review and approval.
“Such a commission,” we wrote, “should be comprised of top-tier scientific advisors and national security experts free of any government agency biases or private financial interests.”
Such a policy change is embodied in the bipartisan “Risky Research Review Act” sponsored by Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Gary Peters (D-MI). The focus of their legislation is gain-of-function research, that is, laboratory experimentation to enhance the lethality and transmissibility of viruses and other pathogens.
Their bill creates a “Life Sciences Research Security Board.” The board would be comprised of eight members — specialists in life sciences, national security, and biosafety — appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Beyond the appropriate security clearances and requisite scientific expertise, the bill has strong provisions to prevent conflicts of interest that might arise from previous employment. It also authorizes regular congressional briefings and requires expeditious responses to congressional requests for information. That’s real transparency.
The job of the board would be to determine whether any federal agency, such as NIH, may award federal funding for research that could pose a threat to public health and safety, especially “gain of function” experimentation to enhance the virulence or transmissibility of a “High Consequence Pathogen” — a bad bug that could result in “uncontrollable spread” in human populations or cause “moderate to severe disease or mortality in humans.” The text of the bill provides several specific examples of deadly viruses.
Importantly, the bill provides that grantees who, during the course of their experimentation, find any changes that render their research “high risk” would be required to pause it within 24 hours and notify the agency head for further review. If found to be “high risk,” the agency head is to notify the board immediately. For federal grantees, any failure to abide by the grant’s terms and conditions would result in disciplinary action, including debarment from receiving federal funding.
Last July, Sens. Paul and Peters passed their bill out of the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee by a lopsided 11-2 vote, and it awaits Senate floor action. Meanwhile, Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) is sponsoring a companion bill in the House.
This bipartisan legislation nicely complements Trump’s May 5, 2025, executive order to protect public health and safety by ending federal funding of dangerous “gain of function” research, especially in China and other countries “of concern.” But there is obviously more to be done.
For example, Section 4 of Trump’s order requires the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, working with other agency heads, to “revise or replace” the previous administration’s policy on government oversight over such research on dangerous pathogens within 120 days. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, that has not yet taken place.
Furthermore, Section 5 requires the OSTP director, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the assistant to the president for domestic policy, to develop and implement within 180 days a “strategy to govern, limit, and track dangerous gain of function research across the United States that occurs without federal funding and other life-science research that could cause significant societal consequences.” (Emphasis added.) The deadline for that action, Nov. 1, 2025, has passed.
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Of course, any president’s executive order, no matter how beneficial to the public welfare, can be quickly reversed or terminated by a subsequent presidential administration. Congress, of course, can solve that problem simply by codifying sound presidential policies in statute.
On biosecurity, President Donald Trump and a bipartisan team of Senators agree on a crucial policy goal: protecting public health and safety from risky biological research. It’s past time to reach the goal line.
Dr. Robert R. Redfield is a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Robert E. Moffit, who has a doctorate in political science from the University of Arizona, is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.