An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian flu is ravaging the U.S. food supply, infecting birds in all 50 states and spreading to mammals including humans. Disturbing new reports show that it’s in Americans’ food now, too. Experts say “there is always a chance the virus may evolve to more easily transmit among humans.” Scary stuff.
The bird flu outbreak has cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars in rising food costs, new government oversight of the food supply, and industry bailout money, too.
So why is the Department of Agriculture working with Wuhan-affiliated experimenters in China to create more dangerous bird flu viruses in the lab?
People will be shocked to learn that the USDA, the same agency charged with stemming the current bird flu outbreak, has wasted at least $1 million of taxpayer funds in recent years to soup up bird flu viruses in dangerous laboratory experiments conducted in collaboration with Chinese experimenters.
In February, the White Coat Waste Project exposed how the USDA is actively collaborating with the state-controlled and military-tied Chinese Academy of Sciences, the notorious Wuhan animal lab’s parent organization, and an experimenter directly affiliated with the Wuhan lab that likely caused COVID-19 and covered it up to create more contagious and dangerous mutations of bird flu viruses.
The USDA-CCP experiments with highly pathogenic avian influenza entail repeatedly infecting animals, including ducks, geese, and quail, in labs with bird flu strains using gain-of-function techniques known to make viruses deadlier and more transmissible to study the viruses’ “potential to jump into mammalian hosts.” The specific bird flu viruses being experimented with include H5NX, the type that caused the current outbreak.
Troubled by White Coat Waste’s findings, Senate Agriculture Committee member Joni Ernst (R-IA) immediately questioned Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack about why the government was collaborating with CCP-controlled labs on dangerous animal experiments involving a virus that posed a “proven risk to humans and animals.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the very real dangers that can result from reckless research with lethal pathogens in unsafe laboratories,” Ernst cautioned in her letter. “U.S. tax dollars should never be spent to finance the creation of new super viruses.”
Then, during a USDA budget hearing in March, House Appropriations Committee member Ben Cline (R-VA) also criticized the project exposed by White Coat Waste and pressed Vilsack for answers.
“Why are we still working with the Chinese government on risky virus research when it has violated U.S. grant and gain-of-function policies, obstructed COVID origin investigations, and refused to share critical data on U.S. COVID research in the Wuhan lab?” Cline asked. He closed with, “You’re doing a disservice to our national security.”
During the exchange with Cline, Vilsack falsely told Congress the USDA-CCP project is “not a collaboration, per se.” However, the project is literally described as a “collaboration” in its title, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences is referred to by USDA as “collaborators.”
In light of Vilsack’s lack of candor and transparency, earlier this month, 18 bipartisan lawmakers, including Reps. Nick Langworthy (R-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), demanded more details and answers from Vilsack about the USDA-CCP collaboration.
“This research, funded by American taxpayers, could potentially generate dangerous new lab-created virus strains that threaten our national security and public health,” the members of Congress wrote in a recent letter.
As Congress investigates and works to hold the USDA accountable, White Coat Waste is leading a diverse coalition of organizations, including FreedomWorks, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, Advancing Law for Animals, Free The People, and the Republican Liberty Caucus, urging the House and Senate Agriculture committees to cut USDA funding for these dangerous bird flu experiments and all animal labs in China and other hostile nations as a “significant way to protect national security, animal and human health, and taxpayer dollars.”
In our letter, we wrote, “Especially after China’s reckless gain-of-function animal research that experts believe caused COVID and its refusal to share key data and cooperate with investigations, Congress should ensure that no more tax dollars are funneled to China’s or other foreign adversaries’ animal labs for risky research.”
Polls show that 71% of taxpayers across the political spectrum want Congress to defund cruel foreign adversaries’ animal labs.
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This isn’t the first bird flu outbreak, and unfortunately, it won’t be the last. But we shouldn’t be openly inviting even more devastation by using tax dollars to create dangerous new bird flu viruses. Wasn’t one deadly pandemic caused by reckless government animal tests in Wuhan enough?
Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund high-risk virus experiments on animals in collaboration with foreign adversaries. The solution is simple: Stop the money.
Anthony Bellotti is the founder and president at government watchdog White Coat Waste Project.