the select subcommittee on the Corona virus pandemic will come to order welcome everyone at the discretion of the chair and pursuant to an agreement with the committee on Energy and Commerce the chairman and ranking member of the committee on Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations Mr Morgan Griffin and Miss Kathy Caster are are permitted to participate in today's hearing for the purposes of questions and give three minute opening statements without objection pursuant to Clause 4 a 3A of house resolution 5 in Clause 2 j2c of house rule 11 the chair May recognize staff of the select subcommittee for questions for equal periods of time not to exceed 30 minutes per side finally without objection the chair May declare a recess at any time I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement good morning the covid-19 pandemic highlighted the debate regarding the risks and benefits of a type of high-risk research specifically what is known as gain of function research prior to the pandemic the public was largely unaware of the existence of this area of research let alone the fact that they were funding it I know I first heard of it during our Co lockdown down while researching how we might treat p patients suffering from this unique and deadly virus in 2014 the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases NAD awarded Eco Health Alliance Inc a grant entitled understanding the risk of bat Corona virus emergence this grant included the collecting of Novel Corona viruses from bats and conducting research on those novel viruses using laboratory mice the lab work where this research was actually occurring was outsourced by Eco Health Alliance to the Wuhan Institute of Urology in China Dr Z daik who is here before us is the president of Eco Health today the select subcommittee released a report regarding Eco health and the evidence surrounding its research activities this report highlights the select subcommittee's concerns with Eco Health as an organization and Dr asic's interactions with federal agencies and foreign entities such as the Wuhan Institute of orology we have found that Ecco Health was nearly two years late in submitting a routine progress report to NIH that Ecco Health failed to report as required a potentially dangerous experiment conducted at the Wuhan Institute of orology that Eco Health used taxpayer dollars to facilitate risky gain function research and that Dr desik omitted a material fact regarding his access to unanalyzed virus samples and sequences at the wi the Wuhan Institute of rology in his successful effort to have his Grant reinstated by NIH these are only a few of our findings which are detailed in our interim report issued today and will be further explored in the select subcommittee's final report Dr daik has been less than cooperative with the select subcommittee and he's been slow to produce requested documents and has used semantics with the definition of gain of function research even in his previous testimony Dr daik maintains that Ecco Health never conducted gain of function research by shifting definitions of this area of research put forth by Regulatory Agencies I believe Dr desik either cannot or will not distinguish between the common understanding of gain of function research and the more technical definitions provided under various and narrowly defined regulatory Frameworks but facts are facts research can be gain of function without meeting these somewhat convoluted and often hard to understand Frameworks that only regulate a very minute subset of research so minute that HHS has only ever reviewed three proposals out of thousands it receiv received every year using highly technical definitions in order to assert that a certain project really isn't gain of function research when most others would suggest as as well as confirm in their testimonies before the select subcommittee that it absolutely is gain of function comes across disingenuous comes across as a disingenuous attempt of avoiding questions and accountability the fact is that as most people understand it Eco Health was absolutely conducting gain of function research specifically in Wuhan China unfortunately Dr desk's problematic behavior is not limited to his less than fullsome cooperation or the risky research that he conducted recently released documents display Dr daic communicating with Dr David morrens who was senior advisor to then niid director Dr Falon and doing so through private channels to avoid Foya Freedom of Information Act Dr daik and Dr morren shared information ideas and strategies about how to best proceed to reobtain funding for this risky research after Dr Michael low had terminated Dr daik Grant Dr morren provided Dr daik with internal NIH deliberations and discussions concerning the suspension of Ecco Health Grant along with assurances that Dr fouchy and niid would seek to mitigate the Damage Done to Eco Health on April 16th 2024 I announced a subpoena to Dr morren for documents in his email relating to the origins of covid-19 yesterday Dr morren produced 30,000 pages of emails emails from his Gmail account which he said he had used to avoid Foya so this investigation does not end today Dr daik told Dr morrens in these private Communications that he still had 15,000 samples quote in freezers in Wuhan end quote and had not yet analyzed more than 700 Corona viruses he had identified in those samples Eco Health has lamented quote the negative impact on US National Security end quote posed by their inability to sequence all the samples at the wi but Eco Health's action themselves are a threat to National Security Dr desik has displayed a disregard for the risk associated with gain of function research the Congressional oversight process and the Federal grant process Dr desik has proven that he's not a responsible steart of the American people's tax dollars we see no reason that the American people should be paying for Eco health research or any other work Dr daik conducts Dr re I believe we agree on this and there may be a path forward let me be clear I support Global health research I support work that will make the world safer that's why we are investigating all of this this our concern is that this research and research similar does the opposite it puts the world at the risk of a pandemic something even Dr fouchy addressed as far back as 2012 in an interview Dr Des before I close and is someone who has been shot at and someone who has received threats I want to tell you that we unequivocally condemn all threats to you to you any public health official scientists anyone else that is wrong and intolerable I look forward at this point to an engaging and on-topic discussion thank you and I would now like to recognize ranking member Ruiz for the purpose of making an opening statement thank you Mr chairman uh when I was named ranking member of the select subcommittee last February I made made a commitment to follow the facts and objectively analyzing the origins of the covid-19 pandemic I made a promise to keep an open mind about how the pandemic started because understanding whether the novel Corona virus emerged from a lab or from nature is essential to better preventing and preparing for future Public Health threats and to better protecting the American people and as the origins of the novel coron virus still remain inconclusive I stand by these commitments to this day but as we we approach the year and a half mark of the house Republican majority it's important that we take stock of what the select subcommittee has accomplished so far and the extent to which we have fulfilled our obligations to the American people for more than 14 months under the guise of it investigating CO's Origins this select subcommittee has relentlessly probed the relationship between the federal government and our nation's scientific Community to prove without evidence Republican accusations of Dr dashek and Echo Health Alliance created the covid-19 pandemic we have poured over more than 425,000 pages of documents provided to us by HHS the state department the department of energy the government accountability office universities and private citizens we have conducted more than 100 hours of closed door interviews with more than a dozen current and former Federal officials and scientists and we have held multiple hearings all in what has appeared to be an effort to weap weaponize concerns about lab related origin to fuel sentiment against our nation scientists and public health officials for partisan gain and while the select subcommittee's probe has uncovered questionable conduct about Dr Dash's commitment to transparency and professional Integrity I want to be clear that it has not substantiated allegations that Echo Health Alliance used taxpayer dollars to fund research that created the covid-19 pandemic no evidence provided to the select subcommittee has indicated that the work perform formed under Echo Health alliance's Grant including at the Wuhan Institute of Urology led to the creation of SARS K2 these viruses are too genetically distant from SARS K2 to be its progenitor virus and the majority has uncovered no tangible proof of other viruses included in work pursuant to the Echo Health Alliance Grant leading to the creation of the covid-19 pandemic and this distinction is critically important today we will hear from both sides that there are serious concerns regarding Echo Health alliance's failure to comply with reporting requirements for federal grantees concerns that draw into questions whether you Dr dashak sought to deliberately mislead Regulators at NIH and niad and while the majority's probe has not meaningfully Advanced our understanding of the pandemic's origins internal documents and testimony do suggest that Dr dashek potentially misled the federal government on multiple occasions in both their transparency obligations and Reporting requirements as recipients of Federal grant funding transparent and forthcoming communication with federal government agencies is expected at all times and this potential misconduct raises serious questions about Echo Health alliance's commitment to the responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars we will also examine whether Dr dashek Beyond his obligation as an employee of a federally funded grantee acted with Integrity in his engagement with the possibility that covid-19 resulted from a research related incident but at the end of the day this is not the same as uncovering Co 19's origin nor is it evidence that our scientific Community caused and has sought to cover up the origins of the pandemic and to cast it as such would be misleading to the American public damaging to already declining confidence in science and Public Health and ultimately harmful to our nation's pandemic preparedness so as we look to the future of fortifying our Nations for future Public Health crisis it is my hope that we can broaden our Focus to the forward-looking policies that will better protect our constituents strengthening oversight of potentially risky research domestically and abroad is an essential part of this conversation but so is closing Pathways for zoonatic transfers of viruses in nature and investing in our Public Health infrastructure to ensure that when future viruses hit our Shores we are ready when Democrats were in the majority we made important strides in these objectives by passing the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 which strengthen protections against undue influence in our biomedical research improve training and transparency for the handling of Select agents PVE the way for the inter agency collaboration to fortify zoonotic disease prevention invested in our infectious disease Workforce and enhanced our supply chain preparedness and ability to rapidly develop and deploy medical counter measures it is my hope that in the remaining months of the select subcommittee we can work together to build on this Legacy and make objectively examining the origins of the novel Corona virus a part of this forward-looking work I stand by the commitments I mentioned earlier Mr chairman to take a serious balanced look at all possibilities for the origins of the covid-19 pandemic and I stand ready to work with you on this critically important Mission so that we can save future lives thank you and I yield back thank you Dr ree I would now like to recognize Mr Griffith for the purpose of making an open statement good morning I want to thank chairman comr and winstrup ranking members Rasin and R Ruiz for having this hearing today and inviting relevant Energy and Commerce chairs and ranking members to it for over a year now we've been working together to investigate the origins of covid-19 pandemic and the role at the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases niad headed by Dr fouchy and Eco Health headed by Dr dasac may have played in it by funding research and facilitating the transfer of Technologies to the Wuhan Institute of orology which I will refer to henceforth as Wuhan it is critical that we understand what went wrong at niad and Ecco Health relationship with Wuhan frankly it's been alarming to discover that nad's approval and oversight of RIS experiments involving potential pandemic pathogens is so LAX My Hope Is that when we are finished we have a package of legislative proposals and other recommendations on bios safety and biocurity I increasingly think that means taking final approval Authority for these experiments away from niad and other funding in favor of an independent entity with so many lives lost and disrupted by what I believe was a research related accident we need transparent effective oversight and tight regulation of gain of function research of concern we certainly do not have that now I participated in Dr Dash's transcribed interview it's clear to me that neither niad nor Eco Health have a complete picture of what Wuhan was up to with its Corona virus collection or with their gain of function research trajectory but what we do know from Ecco Health's uh niad Grant and Ecco Health's diffused proposal and the private musings of biologists who collaborated with Wuhan is not comforting we don't have this critical information in large part because nad's review and oversight was a farce niad and Ecco Health were asleep at the switch in my opinion they were grossly negligent I find it incomprehensible that niad continues to fund Eco Health's collaboration with Wuhan to this very day Ecco Health's Grant was reinstated so they could process virus samples and sequences that had previously that had been previously collected it turns out many of these viruses and sequences are held by Wuhan niad didn't even think to ask them where the samples were stored before restarting their funding even after covid-19 at niad it's just business as usual it's absurd and it's got to change or we risk having perhaps yet another high consequence accident we have to put some adults in place to independent review proposed gain of function research of concern that niad and other agencies want to fund thank you again Mr chairman I look forward to continuing working together and I yield back I would now like to recognize Miss Dingle for the purpose of making an opening statement thank you Mr chairman and ranking member W and chairman Griffith who I sit on Energy and Commerce with as well I want to Echo the thoughts of my colleague ranking member RZ and that we must focus our attention on the future and how we can best protect all Americans from and against future pandemic sewing distrust in the scientific and medical communities is not a way to AC accomplish this goal while I agree and I think most of us on this Das both sides today do that Ecco Health Alliance has proven to be careless and imprecise with their Federal funding contrary to what we expect and demand of any federal grantee this does not mean we should throw out the baby with the bath water as my Republican colleagues seem to be suggesting the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases serve important functions in medical and scientific research to advance the health of all Americans in the world and they have done good work in the past and we want that good work to continue in the future the Eco Health Alliance Grant did reveal some weaknesses in the reporting systems that were in place at niad but it's important to note that in conjunction with their office of Inspector General NAD has already taken steps to rectify these issues the investigation detailed how Ecco Health was not able to secure underlining documents from its subres about important Corona virus research happening in China and that this limited nad's ability to determine if eal Health was compliant with its Grant terms NIH and niad have already implemented recommendations from the oig including ensuring sub award agreements contain all required terms and guaranteeing that Prime awardees can access all research records conducted at the subrecipient locations these changes apply to all grantees this investigation has not looked into these policy changes and how they will improve the information sharing between grantees and the NIH and niad going forward it's only focused on the past throughout this investigation my Republican colleagues have been trying to cast blame for the covid-19 pandemic on Dr Collins and fouchy and as we have seen time and time again it's contrary to the evidence so now they are shifting to blame a wider swath of DED at public servants at NIH and IAD based on the bad actions of a single grante te we should be holding today's witness accountable of which we have bipartisan agreement but this should not distract us from our ultimate goal future pandemic preparedness strengthening our scientific Community to prepare for any future pandemic is our best course of action and I yield back Mr chairman thank you our witness today is Dr Peter daik Dr daik is the president of Eco Health Alliance Inc pursuant to committee on oversight and accountability rule 9g the witness will please stand and raise his right hand do you psalmic where affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God thank you let the record show that the when this answered in the affirmative the select subcommittee certainly appreciates you for being here today Dr desic and we look forward to your testimony let me remind the witness that we have read your written statement and it will appear in full in the hearing record please limit your oral statement to 5 minutes as a reminder please press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it is on and the members can hear you when you begin to speak the light in front of you will turn green after 4 minutes the light will turn yellow when the red light comes on your 5 minutes has expired and we would ask that you please wrap up I now recognize Dr desik to give an opening statement chairman winr ranking member Ruiz distinguished members of the select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic it is a privilege to come before you today to discuss the vital research that Eco Health Alliance conducts globally and to answer your questions about our work I respect and appreciate the critic iCal mission of your select subcommittee which is why I volunteered to testify before you today and similarly volunteered to on a full day transcribed interview with the subcommittee last November I am Peter dashek president of Eco Health Alliance of 501c3 nonprofit based in New York founded in 1971 with a mission to conduct research on emerging disease threats to the US to identify the underlying causes of pandemics and develop solutions to prevent them and to benefit conservation Eco Health Alliance scientists have worked in partnership with us federal agencies since the early 2000s with significant funding support from dozens of leading government and philanthropic donors with funding from the National Institutes of Health we mapped the global spread of high paath avien flu and showed its potential to enter the US via trading partners in Canada information that the government accountability office used to recommend better targeted strategic surveillance by the US da with support from the Department of Homeland Security we M the likely introduction of emerging diseases via air travel and trade and the threat they represent to US public health and agriculture with funding from the National Institute of Health we identifi the origins of the highly lethal NEPA virus and discovered bats of the wildlife reservoirs of Ms SARS and a and a new viral disease that threatens Global swine production in all of our federally funded projects we have maintained an open transparent communication with agency staff rapidly provided information critical to Public Health and agriculture uploaded data and genetic sequences into the us-based NIH gen Bank database and published our analysis in scientific journals so that scientists everywhere can use this information Eco Health alliance's Mission has taken us to places around the world where viruses originate in countries that represent our first line of defense against against novel diseases our work in foreign countries can only happen with the approval of the US funding agency and of the host country government in China with approval from NIH and the state department we partnered with the country's leading virology lab in Wuhan to do this work just as many other US government funded institutions have done our 15 years work in China provided direct public health benefits to the American people with Chinese Scientists Publishing their papers in us-based journals and uploading critical China viral genetic sequences into nih's gen Bank database the viruses that we identified in bats in China were used by US Labs throughout the covid pandemic and continue to be to test drugs vaccines and therapies that saved countless lives Eco Health alliances work is a matter of the public record via dozens of scientific Publications media interviews and public lectures given before during and after the emergence of covid-19 for years we repeatedly briefed the US government International agencies and spoke to the press and public about the risk of a Corona virus outbreak emerging in China from bats unfortunately in 2019 just as we predicted a bat Origins SARS related Corona virus emerged and spread in the city of Wuhan leading to the global covid-19 pandemic the public nature of our work and our long-standing collaborations with Chinese scientists have made us a target for misinformation about the origins of covid beginning in early 2020 and continuing to this day we have repeatedly and publicly refuted the many myths and false allegations about Eco health alliance's research however at a time when the covid-19 pandemic seemed out of control and emotions were running High our organization our staff and even my own family were targeted with false allegations death threats break-ins media harassment and other damaging acts our organization has gone to Great Lengths to address any allegations headon checking our records and stating the facts publicly we estimate over 15 million pages of Eco Health Alliance documents have been shared with federal agencies House and Senate committees and with the public via fire requests and via audits with the Department of HHS oig and inquiries by the government accountability office and we have spent substantial staff time voluntarily helping with every and all um realistic and bipartison investigations the origins of Co like other public figures I have been personally targeted with a white powder letter sent to my home address devastating online threats and media harassment and my children and wife names appearing on a forchan kill list among with other incidents now under investigation by the FBI and other authorities indeed between the public announcement of my voluntary appearance before this committee and the subcommittee's tweets over the past two weeks we've seen a noticeable increase in death threats and other harassment including a swatting attack in my home when the local police received a notice that someone had killed a scientist and had his wife tied up in my basement of course it was a fake call but we ended up with six police cars and detectives searching the house and staying for the afternoon this is not what a scientist should be put through to do their work our funding has also been targeted even though our research programs continue to be um identified as high priority by NIH and other federal agencies despite these challenges we remain committed to our pandemic prevention Mission and to protecting the health of the people in the US and globally we continue to conduct our research and to publish scientific papers so that the data are available for everybody and to upload viral genetic sequences into nih's gen Bank database in 2005 Eco Health scientists developed the first ever emerging infectious disease hotspot map to chart threats so we can better Target resources to prevent them Dr Des our work and that of many other scientists show that you were given five minutes are you ready W the light says I've got um 30 seconds left also I've just got a short period here we've gone over go ahead our work and that of many other scientists show that most pandemics originate from animals mainly wildlife in rapidly developing countries where people and animal come into direct contact but as we saw with covid-19 once a virus begins to spread it exploits travel and trade networks which means a virus emerging anywhere on the planet is a direct to all of us here in the USA thus our research has direct benefits for the public health of the American people strengthens National Security and enhances sustainable economic growth in our allies around the world thank you for your attention I look forward to your questions thank you I now recognize myself for as much time as I may consume for questions with equal time being afforded to the ranking member Dr desik my time is limited so as much as you could limit your answers to yes or no for now would be greatly appreciated in 2018 did you submit an application for funding to DARPA for a project entitled diffuse yes eal law submitt on this proposal did you collaborate with Ralph baric from the University of North Carolina UNCC was one of the the uh co-investigators on the proposal yes with Dr Ralph Barrett yes he was on the proposal on this proposal did you collaborate with zenli shei from the Wuhan Institute of orology yes they were involved in The Proposal were there any other Chinese collaborators on this proposal I don't know I'd have to check the proposal but I think it was just that organization I'm not sure the organization being the Wuhan Institute of orology oh thank you so others maybe from the Wuhan Institute it'll be in the proposal I've got a copy if you want to we'll take a look at that a draft of the diffuse proposal was released via Foya and had some comments in it uh regarding where the work would take place and the BIOS safety level for it the first comment is up on the screen it has the initials PD did you write this comment yes can we get it up on the screen okay it says Ralph zeni if we win this contract I do not propose that all of this work will necessarily be conducted by Ralph but I do want to stress the US side of this proposal so so that DARPA are comfortable with our team once we get funds we can then allocate who does what exact work and I believe that a lot of those essays can be done in Wuhan as well the proposal says that Dr baric would reverse engineer Spike proteins to test their capacity to cause disease were you also intending that the wi uh conduct some of the work if you look at the language in my comments yes or no please I'm just no the the language says assays not experiments already the wiv is clearly listed in the proposal to conduct some assay why did you want to stress the US side of the proposal well I checked with Dara if it was okay to um include a Chinese collaborator on the proposal they said yes they checked with their higher-ups and said yes um so we went ahead with that but I was still concerned that we didn't want to um have too much American taxpayer dollars going to China so that's that's the meaning of that the second comment is up on the screen and again it has the initials PD did you write this comment yes it says I'm planning to use my resume and Ralphs period linfa zengle I realize your resumés are also very impressive but I'm trying to downplay the non us focus of this proposal so that DARPA doesn't see this as a negative again your language of attempting to downplay how much work would occur in China well there's nothing sorry why oh well there's nothing unusual about this at all if you're writing a grant to a federal agency it gets reviewed by a committee of outside scientists it's not necessarily Dara telling me it's okay to include um Chinese and foreign collaborators doesn't necessarily mean the reviewers know that or or are going to see in the same way so I simply wanted to stress the US side of the proposal um I I was trying to explain to our colleagues why their CVS weren't going to be in we were limited in the number of CVS we could add that's all it's quite simple thank you so you were downplaying how much work I mean I say it right there in that comment did Dr she contribute to the drafting of The Proposal at all of course yeah all all all collaborat third comment is up on the screen and this time it was written by Dr baric and says in the US these recombinant SARS Corona viruses are studied under bsl3 not bsl2 in China might be growing these viruses under bsl2 us researchers will likely freak out were you proposing to do the work in diffuse at bsl2 No in fact you write in The Proposal that the choice of BS L2 is more coste effective Dr baric testified that he does this work at bsl3 and in fact encouraged you to do the same what's more important to you bios safety or cost um well look Eco Alliance maintains the appropriate bios safety levels for our research the proposal includes research which according to both us and Chinese bios safety rules which are have right in front of me uh bsl2 it also has research which according to both us and Chinese rules are bsl3 the final proposal is the proposal of record and it is absolutely correct in the definition of BIOS safety levels um that that go into this this is simply a draft proposal where one group's suggesting one thing another is suggesting another the final proposal is what matters and I want to remind the committee that this proposal was not funded the work was never done it is utterly irrelevant to the origins of Co well it's not irrelevant Dr desik it's very relevant and uh you know you just you just stated that China those are China standards so you're okay with China standards as opposed to the US standards and uh it does matter whether it's at a bsl2 or bsl3 as Dr uh baric uh pointed out and it also is important to understand that you intentionally downplayed the role of China between your actions to DARPA and those with NIH you have failed to be a good Steward of taxpayer dollars and it's our recommendation that you do not receive any anym understanding lethality of covid-19 to certain vulnerable populations for sure do you believe that a lethal virus could be used as a bioweapon and should we be concerned about such weapons well um with respect you made two allegations in there that I want to address first you mischaracterize my statement what I said about bios safety levels is that they are the same in both China and the us and that we followed them implicitly to the letter I have them in front of me I'm happy to share them with the committee um secondly you suggested that we downplay the role of China that's not true we before the proposal was submitted I contacted DARPA and asked them if it was appropriate to uh conduct a project in China and to include Chinese scientists they check with their authorities and they said yes so we included that and and in response to your um question sorry um do you have a record of that check oh yes I do okay we would and I'm happy to share it with the committee please do and I I remember the name of the personent was um Dr gimlet um and I have an email record of that I've seen it recently yes excellent of course excellent and we also I have on record uh what you had said in your emails but again to my question do you believe that a lethal virus could be used as a bioweapon and should we be concerned about such weapons of course and there's a long history of of pathogens being used as bioweapons but that is not the research that we thank you but maybe that's why DARPA turned you down I now recogniz right now recognize a ranking member from Dr Ruiz California for five minutes of question I'll go ahead and let you address that for a few seconds thank you very much Dr Ruiz um DARPA turned us down for whatever reasons Dara had we we we uh the only information we received from DARPA about the reasons for turning us down was an exit interview which I have which I have um contemporaneous notes from which I'm happy to share with the committee in no um uh instance did they suggest that the reason for turning down was because of safety issues in fact they said it was an excellent proposal they didn't have enough money to fund it they came back to us later to try and fund por or that it was a bioweapon search Peter sorry Dr desac uh did they turn you down because they thought somehow there was going to be bioweapon research in the lab absolutely not never mentioned you know I think one of the things that that we know there's two things one is that there's so many agencies that have shown uh or reported with low mostly low and one with moderate confidence that it could either be a zoonatic transmission or a lab leak so the data is still out there that it's inconclusive but one of the things that they clearly state is that it was not bioweapon research I believe that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would agree that transparency and disclosures regarding competing interest are necessary for individuals addressing scientific questions open to reasonable debate in February 2020 the Lancet published a statement signed by an international group of scientists who stood together to quote condemn conspiracy theor suggesting that covid-19 does not have a natural origin the statement purports to express solidarity with scientists and Frontline workers in China many of whom we've learned were sharing early information about the virus at Great personal cost Dr dashek evidence reviewed by the select subcommittee demonstrates that you authored and organized the statement is it still your view that all theories suggesting that covid-19 has a research related origin are conspiracy theories no we take all the all theories seriously we looked at every single Theory that's Emer well I'm glad that there's been a shift in in your thoughts uh and that you agree because whether the virus came from a lab or from nature is still unknown two federal agencies still assess with low and moderate confidence that the virus originated in a lab and four government agencies still assess with low confidence that the virus emerged from nature but the lanet statement that you authored sarily attempted to close that question understanding that your funding and ability to partner with the Wuhan Institute of virology relied on relaxed scrutiny of research related origin theories so let me ask you why did you decide not to declare a competing interest well first of all uh Dr re um the the conspiracies that we were talking about in the Lancet lecture at the time in February 2020 were things like there are HIV inserts into the virus that the the virus contains snake DNA that it's a bioengineered virus um those those are pure conspiracy theories there is no evidence at all for them and they're based on um myth and and Legend so that's what we were talking about at the time um so why did you decide not to declare a competing interest I I did declare a competing interest so the L later requested that you expand on your initial disclosures in turn you elaborated on your Corona virus work in China however your updated disclosures do not explicitly acknowledge that you had partnered with the Wuhan Institute of enology that is a glaring Omission particularly when as you stated at your transcribed interview your updated disclosures are otherwise extremely detailed Dr dashek why did you decide not to name the Wuhan Institute of Urology and disclosures of your Corona virus work in China well I I want to point out that the competing interest statement that we published in Lancet is longer than the original letter um it contains the most detail it could have a thousand words 2,000 words the the the fact of the matter is that you didn't you didn't disclose the competing interest and at one point you agreed with your colleagues that you should not sign the statement and offered that uh um that you should not sign the statement offer that you would release it quote in a way that doesn't leak it back to our collaboration so I'm going to list a series of actions you took before and shortly after the statement publication so so one second let me let me just finish this list you requested the L not designate you as a corresponding author you arranged for the Lancet to feature the eventual 27 signatories as co-authors in alphabetical order you created a covid-19 statement Google Mail address for reader correspondence you directed one of the statement signatories to take a press inquiry you had personally received Dr desak did you take those actions so that the lanc statement would not in your own words link back to your collaborations no um those those actions were taken because as we state in I think the final sentence of the of the statement this is a 300-word statement to show support for scientists fighting a pandemic and the final phrase we say we speak in one voice all of us all 26 um people are leaders in public health there are people in authors of that um that letter that are far more higher ranked in the system than I am it was inappropriate for me to be first or corresponding author because we speak as one voice we state that clear in the letter we off felt very strongly about it and I want to remind the committee that almost all of those authors uh followed up with a renewed letter to lanet to to continue support for that original letter about a year later so you know let me let me be clear here um I categorically condemn the threats you and other scientists or public health officials have received due to extreme accusations like we've heard from some of my colleagues um words have consequences and repeated attacks uh can rile up um people's negative sentiments and uh and result in threats but it seems like you were aware your involvement in the Lancet statement had at minimum the appearance of a competing interest Dr desak you may disagree that you had a competing interest as a technical matter so I'd like to know where did you draw the line between the appearance of a competing interest and an actual competing interest at the time we wrote that letter none of us all 26 authors could ever imagine the political Milestone that's happened since none of us thought that the work where do you draw the line between where do you draw the line between the appearance of a competing interest and an actual competing interest well in in the case of the Lancet letter um we filed our our our submission I'm I'm in the case of all your disclosures and all the debate where you didn't say that Wuhan was a subsidiary of your Grant like where do you comp you know you were doing subsidiary work at Wuhan where do you draw the line between want telling folks that yes you are in fact were subg granting research at Wuhan and uh and and yet you're debating whether or not this came from Wuhan um I think you'll find in my competing interest I state that we've done extensive work with multiple organizations in China multiple organization in China is a way to skirt around the fact that it was W 20 years of research I mean the one the one lab that we're interested in here is Wuhan right and yet you you say multiple Labs so Dr daak you know my my heart goes out to you and and your family uh I I really I really feel for you and your family for the attacks um that that you you guys have endured but you know I I can appreciate the import of solidarity with Scientists fighting covid-19 sharing information about the virus yet facing resistance from their government we saw the same during the Trump Administration but your failure to declare a competing interest coupled with your efforts to disperse apparent authorship among the signatories deprive the public of important context when reading the statement so with that you know I want to I want to thank you for being here and I I yield back thank you I now recognize Iz the chairman of the full committee Mr comr from Kentucky for five minutes thank you Mr chairman Dr dassk how long have you been a collaborator with the Wuhan Institute of virology I think since about 2003 so during that time before the pandemic were you aware of all the types of research occurring at the Wuhan lab we we were aware of all the published information coming out of the lab and the people we met from the lab were you aware that there was a Chinese military lab associated with Wuhan lab no and I still am not aware of that in the fall of 2019 the W Wuhan uh lab virus database was taken offline have you ever seen its full virus database no to your knowledge did the Wuhan Institute conduct Corona virus research that did not involve Eco Health yes in kind of standard procedure do you do research do researchers publish every virus they find or every experiment they conduct and they try and publish most eventually so is it possible the Wuhan Institute has viruses or conducted experiments that they never published yes so you testified to your lack of knowledge regarding activities at the Wuhan lab is it possible covid-19 was the result of a lab League I've uh publicly stated that many times including as a member of The Who mission to investigate the co Origins all of us in the group uh unanimously voted it's possible correct that it that it was possible but extremely unlikely based on the evidence we have Dr dasic the US intelligence Community has investigating has been inv tigating the origins of covid-19 during that investigation were you ever contacted by any intelligence agencies yes which ones the CIA the FBI and the defense intelligence agency okay Dr dassk before I ask you this next question I want to remind you that you are under oath other than the interactions you just testified to have you or do you have a standing relationship either officially or unofficially with any agency in the intelligence community no so you've never been an informant for the US government you ask me if I have a standing relationship with any agencies in the intelligence Community the answer is no so you're stating publicly you've never been an informant for any us intelligence agency I'm stating publicly that I do not have a standing relationship with intelligence community that was your question have you ever been an informant for any us intelligence agency not to my knowledge I've certainly when they've asked me questions I've provided answers as any citizen of the US what types of question would they did they ask you questions before the covid outbreak um I've I've spoken with um FBI before the covid outbreak of course so you had Communications with the intelligence Community before the outbreak of Co the FBI was a member of The Forum on micro microbial threats which I'm the chair of so yes only in that context like what what types of conversations did you talk about prior to the outbreak of covid talk about um emerging disease threats and what information we have about where on the planet the next virus is likely to emerge certainly talked about China and the threats of Corona viruses so did the US intelligence Community know what was going on in the Wuhan lab that's a question for the US intelligence agency I mean we we've supplied any information to any government agency that so the US intelligence agency was interested because you had conversations with them prior to covid in what type of activity was taking place in the Wuhan lab and and I believe they've asked many other scientists too how how familiar would you state that the intelligence Community was with what was going on in the Wuhan lab did the intelligence Community believe that the Wuhan lab was being used by China to manufacture bioweapons well that's really for the insur community to answer but in in the public statements that they've made they two agencies I think have low to moderate confidence that there was some activity and the other agencies were unable to comment so I'm not sure they do have much information do you find it troubling that b accounts from your testimony the intelligence Community suspected Something Fishy was going on at the Wuhan lab despite that they still funded research with American taxpayer dollars at the Wuhan lab well the the I don't know that the intelligence Community funded research there but but the government did and the intelligence community's part of the government sure I I sorry I I misunderstood your question um I don't find it troubling at all I don't think it's unusual because the the only two intelligence agencies from my recollection have any belief that that may have been involved in in in a lab origin of covid and they have low to moderate confidence I just don't think the data are there to support that and I think that the the evidence that this came from a natural spillover is huge and growing every week my time's expired Mr chairman are you back and now recognize Miss Dingle from Michigan for five minutes of questions thank you Mr chairman in 2018 Eco Health submitted a Grant application titled project diffuse to the def to DARPA and although DARPA ultimately rejected the application it proposed experiments to introduce fur and cleavage sites into Corona viruses that has as we all know since met controversy for context fur and cleavage sites are an attribute found in some viruses including SARS cov2 that can help make these viruses more infectious Dr daac did project diffuse proposed that the Wuhan Institute of rology performed the fur and cleavage site experiments no do you have any knowledge of the Wuhan Institute biology or UNCC ever performing the fign cleavage site experiments no you have none no your answers appear to be consistent with your transcribed interview testimony about project diffuses proposed for in cleav side experiments however Republicans have suggested that your testimony today and previously is materially inconsistent with the comment you made on a recently released draft of the project diffuse application you wrote that you quote want to stress the US side of this proposal so that DARPA are uncomfortable with our team once we get the funds we can then allocate who does what exact work and I believe that a lot of these essays can be done in Wuhan as well Republicans have suggested that this comment is inconsistent with your testimony about where particular project diffuse experiments would be conducted however it's not entirely clear that the fer and cleavage site experiments you've test about today and previously are the same same work being pref referenced in your comment and I would like to note that the final project diffuse proposal does in fact reference certain lab work to be conducted in Wuhan Dr doik is your testimony about the proposed fur and cleav site experiments at UNCC inconsistent with your comment about lab work in Wan absolutely not and and as you can see from the um the sidebar comment and the draft proposal that you're referring to I was talking about assays assays are things like PCR tests like the covid tests we all take they use non-infectious particles they're not infectious agents the Infectious work involving uh recombinant viruses is clearly laid out in the proposal to be done at UNC and I want to remind the committee again that this proposal was never funded and the work was never done well thank you for clearing that up but I do want to know however that it appears that you intended to mislead DARPA about the extent of wuhan's involvement at the time you made this comment you told the chairman uh that you saw nothing unusual about this I kind of raises some questions for uh me it's not so easy uh so I guess I'd like you to talk about that a little more Dr Zach why did you even entertain the thought of minim iing and apparently omitting the extent of wuhan's involvement well I did talk to the Dara um staff right at the beginning when we started planning this proposal and asked them straight up in an email chain is it okay to propose this to work with the colleagues in China on Corona viruses from China they said yes so there was no intent to hide any China involvement they're in the proposal and what matters is the record of the prop proposal not what's written in a draft months earlier that was then rejected by our internal deliberations the the record of the proposal that was submitted clearly lays out the work plan and indicates each lab and what work it's going to do DARPA reviewed that they saw it they had oversight over that if then when they said yes you got the go-ahead to be funded we would then have submitted work plans if I wanted to change where one or two of the essays were done I would then propose that to DARPA they would have complete Authority and oversight over whether that happened or not so there was no attempt to to deceive at all there are appearance issues here so that's why I want to say my Democratic colleagues and I want to yeah emphasize the importance of transparency we believe in a full accounting of facts and I believe we have been very fair with you we won't accuse you of creating covid-19 because that's simply not what we can do with the available evidence it doesn't demonstrate it and we will give you the opportunity to respond to allegations uh Republican allegations that may not hold water but to the extent that you have considered misrepresenting facts or done so we will consider that a very serious mistake and with that I yield back Mr chairman thank you I now recognize Mr Griffith from Virginia for five minutes of questions thank you Dr dashak I'd like to walk through inconsistency we have identified in your uh in this investigation in your testimony I would request unanimous consent to move three documents into the record the first is the draft progress report dated May of 2020 the second the year five progress report submitted to NIH in August of 2021 and the last is an excerpt from Dr Dash's transcribed interview of November without objection the first document is an earlier draft of the year five progress report that was originally due in September of 2019 that was sent to the committee by an anonymous whistleblower you should have that now that's this document here yep it appears that this version was updated on or last updated on May 20 26 2020 which was about 7 months after it was due and about 16 months before you would submit it or submit a document to the ni to niad in August of 2021 I'll also note that we have report repeatedly requested the drafts of these progress reports from eco wealth but the drafts including this one have not been produced in the version you submitted to niad in August of 2021 in talking about transference from bats to humans you you stated or the report stated there may be as many as the low hundreds of thousands to over a over a million people infected each year in South CH in South China and Southeast Asia this statement has since been repeated in multiple news articles for the proposition that direct bat to human spillover of viruses is a common occurrence it has been used to Bolter bolster the case for natural origin and may even be responsible as you said for the the intelligence Community having low to moderate assurance that it started in the lab but the May 2020 draft of year five progress report reached a different conclusion with the same data this is still your people and you stated in that one quote the low rate of zero positivity observed in this study indicates that the back Corona virus spillover is a rare event rare or up to a million so as of May 2020 Eco Health was in the opinion that a spillover of bat viruses into people was a rare event but when you finally sent this report to NIH the reports stated that spillovers infected potentially a million people each year in South China and Southeast Asia now in addition to the draft being materially different this may 2020 draft also contradicts your transcribed interview testimony during the interview I specifically asked you and I asked you directly whether the 2021 version of the year five progress report was quote in all respects the same as end quote the one that was supposed to be submitted in September of 2019 you testified from the point of view of the the point of view of the work that this committee is concerned about in SARS related Corona virus yes then we had a discussion about the fact that there's a couple of committees involved and you repeated yes that there was nothing significant that wasn't in the draft that would have then been put in the final version that's your testimony under oath in light of this may 2020 draft of the progress report I don't know how to interpret your answer to me in the transcribed interview as anything other than untruthful you changed perhaps one of the most important findings the likelihood of back Corona virus spillover into humans from very rare in early 2020 on a report that was due in September of 2019 to possibly over a million spillovers annually in Southeast Asia and Southeast China Alone by late 2021 there's no new dat data there's no new paper cited just a complete 180 reversal on the conclusion now Dr dashek this is uncomfortable but we must know and my assumption is is that you either had Communications with Dr fouchy or others at NI at niad you had outside pressure or you realiz Iz that your company could be liable and so changes were made either to satisfy n ni niad or others in the scientific Community or to cover up potential liability which one is it well well there's a fourth possibility isn't there that we'd conducted scientific research in the period between the initial drafting of that report and and updating it if that were true hang on if that were true Dr dashak why didn't you tell me that in November of last year it's only it's been less than six months I gave you the opportunity to say that there was a change in your initial drafts and later drafts you didn't bring up this fourth possibility then you didn't say well we did some additional research and we made a change on the number of of times that a bat virus might spill over into the population in Southeast Asia or South China you didn't give me that I gave you the chance I didn't ask it as I was looking for facts I wasn't trying to cross-examine you at that time and yet you didn't tell me the truth and today you come up with a new Theory as to why that might have happened but that's not what you gave me in November isn't that true you didn't give me that in November isn't that true yes or no my theory is it yes or no that you told me something wrong false in my theory has a substantial advantage over yours in that it's no my theory is you didn't tell me the truth you're now coming up with a theory that as to why your reports in the leaked 2020 report and your later 202 report 2021 report are different I'm asserting and I'm asking you you told me something wrong November if your fourth theory is correct is that true I believe I'm seeing this for the first time you never showed this to me the on the on the record I didn't have it in November but I asked you if there was a subst I would have explained it then if you let me speak I'll explain it now well let me let me I me I can give you the answer to your question I'm going to I'm going to answer it for you cuz here's the problem okay I asked you specifically if there would be any substantial or or significant changes from what you would have had you said you tried to send the report in earlier it didn't there was something wrong with the the site and so forth and I said but that report that was due in September when you tried to send it in September of 2019 were there any substantial differences you said that there weren't that they would be substantially the same and that still correct and you don't think this is a significant change no wow I will explain I explain why I practiced I practiced in the criminal courts for many many years and I will just tell you if you were my client I would tell you that that dog won't hunt and the judge ain't going to believe that I yield back thanks now recognize Miss Ross from North Carolina for five minutes of questions uh thank you very much Mr chairman and ranking member Dr dashek um I'm going to return to the report but um talk about a discret issue examined in the minority staff report um that the Democrats released this morning concern concerning your compliance with nih's reporting requirements so we're just going to stay on reporting requirements and as you know as a grant recipient and um and a scientist accurate and timely reporting is crucial for the stewards of taxpayer funds and missteps in this process can reflect poorly on the broader scientific Enterprise so consistent with nih's grants policy statement and NAD niad required you to submit annual progress reports for your grants annual every year your Grant had an initial 5-year term meaning you were required to submit five reports but I'm going to go back to the report that my colleague was talking about so your year five report so the fifth report you'd already reported done fine before then that was due on September 19th is that correct uh that's not correct it was due on September the 28th 2019 right but I'm sorry September 28th 2019 yeah perfect thank you but it is also true that you did not submit this report until August of 2021 nearly two years later as my colleague just represented well you did not submit the report at the end of September of 2019 we uploaded the report into the system the system locked us out we tried to contact NIH we Reed no response so um excuse me reclaiming my time you did email on July 30th of 2019 your grants manager saying you expected to have everything uploaded by the end of July but then the report was not uploaded by the end end of July I'm quoting an email from um Dr shamura um dated July 30th 2019 which is on file then H hhsi examined why you submitted the year five um report nearly two years late and again you told us about this lockout for the um for the deadline however NIH performed an ronic forensic investigation of its report submission system and found no evidence of a lockout they also found no evidence to corroborate your claims additionally in a transcribed interview with select committee staff the NIH official tasked with your grants compliance believed that you could have submitted the report on time you have provided us with no documented evidence of Ecco Health's Outreach to niad about the lockout and then you stated it didn't exist because you only contacted by phone that assertion is pretty difficult to square with your staff's previous patterns of communication over the previous four years for example your staff had emailed twice in July of 2019 uh once on July 30th as I previously explained and then earlier on July 24th so there was no email on September 29th that said we tried to call you and in the previous year you previously emailed a copy of your year four annual report to multiple niad officers so there was no email of the F fifth year report the same one that my colleague was talking about so your staff knows to communicate they had for the life of the Grant and then later you claimed that that year five report was of little significance because the grant renewal application it contained experimental results from year five of the grant but that's just not true because we've heard this whole colloquy about differences that would have been made between 2019 and 2021 yes or no if you had looked back and knew that you would be here today would you have done something differently to ensure that that report was received in September of 2019 well I I I have a timeline of submission efforts and there are there are attempts to submit which are not yet on the record with you which will supply we'd appreciate that there are also it's also both things can be true that a forensic analysis of efforts to submit aren't going to pick up a phone call to the grants management staff that our admin people made they did they received no response I believe that person then left and look the the um the issue over um what we would do differently well one thing I would do differently was I certainly send a copy of the report to our program officer I did that in year four not because that's a routine process that's not but you to set up a meeting with the program officer to you knew that there were difficulties you had a previous experience of doing this and making sure people got things and what I am saying is when the taxpayers money is used for scientific research it is imperative that people comply with the rules particularly when their behavior had been exemplary in the past and that is what raises the concerns that you have heard from our colleagues and that I yield back but let me explain please if I can um NIH told us it to submit that report it took NIH 11 days to unlock the system so any assertion that the system was not locked a demonstrably false 11 days and that time we got the email receipts which I'll share with you of course I now recognize Miss malot Takis from New York for five minutes of question thank you very much Mr chairman uh Dr daik Gina function is broadly understood as a type of research that modifies a biological agent so that it confers new and enhanced activity to that agent does that describe any of the work uh that Wuhan conducted as far as you are knowledgeable that is not the definition of gain of function okay then what is your definition I don't have a personal definition okay but did you then let me ask this question did any of the research that you funded through your organization at Wuhan lab modify a virus to make it more infectious among humans yes or no no that was not the goal of our work and that's why it was not considered going a function okay but in 2016 will the g l suspend for just a moment under the rules of the house the chairman is responsible for maintaining order and preserving decorum in the committee room I expect audience members to be respectful of the witnesses members and public and there should be no filming I you back in 2016 uh in an email to NIH you said we are happy to hear that our gain of function research funding uh ban has or prohibition has or pause rather has been lifted so what were you what gain of function therefore followed well they'd paused our research because of the gain of function Paws they lifted the Paw in our research that was the response I was I was so after that period of time you did not fund any research that modified a virus to make more more infectious among humans yes Eco Health lines never has and did not do gain of function reseearch by definition aware are you aware uh of uh Wuhan lab conducting that type of research no okay um the state department has indicated ties between Chinese military and whv since 20167 you testified earlier that you were not aware of any type of military activity at the wh I've never seen any I I've never seen any any reliable reporting of any okay um Eco Health received tens of millions of dollars from the defense department did any of this money make its way to the whiv not a single sent okay did any scientific information derived with those funds make its way to the wh the scientific information derived from the ditra work that we do goes to ditra and the American people okay and so no technology or anything obtained with the the funds uh from the Department of Defense made its way to the wh there is no connection between the with and the work we do with datra at at all whatsoever okay thank you um why did you choose to partner with uh the Wuhan lab well if you want to work in a foreign country to find the next potential risk of a pandemic you have to work with labs in those countries uh we looked at Labs across China the wi is the Premier viral research in China and at no time were you concerned about subpar safety conditions at this particular lab No in fact it's got very good bi safety level well I mean I think that could be disputed at this point um well I've never seen any verifiable evidence or data that suggests otherwise well I think our intelligence Department intelligence Community has shown that they've been operating no I've never seen any verifiable or real data to suggest otherwise intelligence Community reports behind the um you know security and I can't see those how how much um has the Eco Alliance received since the outbreak of the covid pandemic from in American tax dollars um from 2020 to today our annual operating budget this year is about $16 million so it's been about four years since the pandemic so given the fluctuation in funding approximately um four times 15 or $16 million okay uh now colleagues on both sides of the aisle say that we want to pre prevent the next pandemic yet Eco health is still receiving tens of millions of dollars to do risky to pre prevent the next pandemic but that's our goal that's our mission to prevent the next pandemic you could actually produce one and what I want to yes absolutely yes no no absolutely not that's that's that's not so although funding was stopped at Eco healths Alliance um work on bat Corona viruses in Wuhan your researchers are still doing research on bat Corona viruses uh in Myanmar LA and Vietnam is that correct yes not mymar we're not allowed to work there yet because of political instability okay and are you doing experiments with bats and hamsters on uh the the deadly brain swelling NEPA virus in Bangladesh um I would have to check if we're doing experiments on that we certainly have funding to work on Nea virus it's a very real threat globally and to the American people and are you infecting humanized mice uh with zuntic viruses in Southeast Asia um not to my knowledge but I would have to check and and are you um are you did you obtain $14 million in taxpayer funds to import bats from Asia to create a breeding Colony here in the United States at the University of uh State University of Colorado we have a a collaboration with CSU to conduct work on a really significant Public Health threat called NEPA virus okay and now you'll be dead you'll be infecting those bads with deadly viruses including the NEPA and the Ebola are you aware that Colorado State University has had lab accidents in the past um there will be no infection experiments to my knowledge with NEPA or Ebola at CSU that will be done at a BSL full facility elsewhere okay I run a time I'll yield back thank you Dr Des we're going to take some of the questions it you said you'd get back to us on we'll submit him for the record and and get a response I now recognize Miss takuda from Hawaii for five minutes a questions thank you Mr chair doctor a key issue at today's hearing is your transparency as a federal grantee there is an apparent Gap in understanding between you and niad about the status of key bat samples related to your Grant there's an open question about the extent to which this Gap may be attributable to omissions or misrepresentations on your part I'd appreciate your help in understanding um this a little bit more in April 2023 NAD allowed work to resume on the Eco Health Grant while barring Eco Health from providing Any Grant funds to the Wuhan Institute of biology the select subcommittee interviewed two senior ni officials involved in that decision we were told that part of the logic in allowing the grant to move forward was preserving access to biological bat samples from your prior work so for context under the former ation of the Eco Health Grant the Wuhan Institute of biology collected and tested bat samples for the presence of Corona virus Dr it appears that when niad renewed your Grant they were of the understanding that you would have access to those bat samples in fact in a transcribed interview a niad official testified that you had directly informed her Eco Health had access to those samples but in your transcribed interview you testified that all of the bat samples that wi had collected under your Grant remained in the custody of the wi doctor do you have physical access to the bat samples the Wuhan Institute of biology previously collected under your Grant simple yes or no will suffice sadly we do not do you have access to the genetic sequences of viruses found in those bat samples yes we do at any point did you as a CEO of eha demand that your team physically verify and cross check the sequen SC at the Wuhan Institute of biology yes or no will suffice we we we cross check all the information that comes out from all of our collaborators so you cross check it but did you actually see the the conduct yourself did you go there to the lab have actually have access to the samples and do the work yourself or were you taking um the information the sequencing you got from Wuhan and just assuming that it was correct for us to go to China and do the do the sequencing and the extraction of RNA and all that work our the object of having a sub contract the whole point is that the work is done in China by the Chinese researchers because that's what what is the um most efficient way to do that work we then get the data from them we cross check it validate it submit it for publication it's reviewed revised so we're working thank you sir I'm taking back my time so clearly we're taking the word of these Chinese scientists and to stay the obvious having the Wuhan Institute of biology send you electronic sequences through emails as I recall through your testimony um is not the same thing as physically having the samples there's nothing stopping the Wuhan Institute of biology from withholding certain sequences of particular interest or for manipulating sequence data for unknown purposes in addition the Gap and understanding between you and niad regarding the status of these samp is highly concerning to me doctor did you intentionally misrepresent your access to the samples to get your Grant uh renewed by niad yes or no no and let me explain why there may be a discrepancy in the understanding from niad we were very clear that the samples collected with us taxpayers money because of the geopolitical issues and our gr be and terminated are now unable to be taken out of that lab we were told that by the Chinese authorities however we had gotten access to genomic information new information sequence data and that is what we proposed to work with with NIH in fact it was Eco Health Alliance me who proposed to n in our renegotiation that we would not do any on the ground work in China and we don't need to because we already had you seem to be giving a lot more information than what we were provided in the the days of testimony that you sat down um and and gave our team as well as that that we got from niad so clearly someone is either lying or somebody is clearly misrepresenting themselves so if you in fact said all of these things to niad officials are you saying that they are misrepresenting you no and I I I categorically refute the suggestion that someone's lying um this is uh a simple case of people are mistaken between what a sample is and what a sequence is the the critical piece of information that the it's very hard for you to mistake in between a sample and a sequence in your profession and within people make that mistake all the time scientists a series of mistakes and that had to be made in order for Nia to have the understanding that you had access to the samples yourselves versus having it in wi as you're stating you clearly stated that to them that you had no access to the physical samples yes repeatedly and there's a key document that the committee is missing which is the the niad official misrepresented herself then in her testimony to this committee is that what you're claiming I'm not claiming anything about the N KN official I've not seen the testimony I've not seen what evidence they've got however I will state the committee should look at a do a document which is with nyad and we have a copy of it it's the renegotiated specific aims which clearly say no underground work will be done in China okay samples will come from China Dr my time is up I appreciate the time of the chair here I think it's important that granes represent themselves honestly and transparently our taxpayers deserve better and this committee demands nothing less thank you Mr chair I yield back now recognize uh Mrs Miller Meeks from Iowa for five minutes of questions thank you uh thank you very much Mr chairman and uh thank you Dr daik for testifying before the select subcommittee today uh I've not been in your place before um and I would say that certainly very challenging um you know some people would say where I represented Southeast Iowa is kind of redneck or kind of hickville so um I think a lot of medical terminology and scientific terminology is very confusing and very confusing to the average person and even the average Congress person uh so as I recall there was a um under the Obama Administration a pause on gain of function research um and that was a two-year pause that uh Dr fouchy helped to communicate uh and then also was communicating whether or not that prohibition should be lifted and as I recall weren't you in favor of lifting the prohibition on gain of function research I don't think I've ever publicly stated whether the prohibition should be lifted or not I think we published an editorial in our Journal Eco Health that discussed the pros and cons of gain and function research back in 2015 something like that and we came out with a conclusion me and some other authors that this is a controversial piece of work that if it goes ahead must be done in a very controlled and and uh by safe way thank you for that and for your Grant which funded uh the Wuhan Institute of rology you proposed a on log growth award term and this term um was in place in case any of the viruses that were being modified grew so but that's not considered gain of function so so or is it that's the confusing part to me yeah it's it's um it's quite important distinction the the gain of function rules come into play when you propose an experiment and and the experiment is reviewed then as to whether it is likely to with a reasonable um Assurance of likelihood cause an increase in transmission or um or pathogenicity of a virus already known to infect people because the work we were doing was on bat Corona viruses it was not covered by those rules it it was not con considered of any risk to human health because they've never been shown to infect people that's one of the reasons why it what about SARS did SARS not infect people is that the um the work we were we were doing was to to work with that Corona viruses and I may be confused but I think SARS was about Corona virus no SARS was not about coron any of the viruses in your experiments did any of them grow in as you said transmissibility or pathogenicity no in any way that would um cause any so they they may have grown in transmissibility or pathogenicity but that's not gain of function research because if you look at the definition of gain of function research it's to assess whether a human pathogen is likely to be increased by some experiment on it the the viruses we were working on were bad cor but listen please don't take my word for it the the NIH wrote to us and I had the letter here and said your work is not gain of function and can move ahead I think it's contest Ed whether uh the experiments violated the one law growth term occurred during the fourth or fifth year of your Grant and then therefore as we know um there was questions about um oversight and oversight on your grant let me just change a little bit in your written testimony I can I just respond very briefly sir oh of course thank you um you state that Echo Health has maintained open transparent communication with agency staff rapidly provided information critical to Public Health and published analysis in scientific journals so that scientists everywhere can use this information very important you continue by describing how Federal funding has allowed you to build capacity in China which led to you being able to obtain actual public health information from the scientist which aided your research of SARS virus originating from bats based off your remarks and your testimony would you say that you've been you have responsibly used Federal grant doll dollars we have we have responsibly used Federal grant dollars so the h Office of the Inspector General every oversight issue so the HHS Office of the Inspector General released a report in January 2023 stating that the National Institutes of Health and Eco Health Alliance did not effectively monitor Awards and subawards which resulted in missed opportunities for oversight and effective accounting of taxpayer dollars amongst the many recommendations of the oig report included it stated that Eco Health should comply with reporting requirements for Grants and sub Awards as well as implementing enhanced monitoring of how funds are used I think the point has already been made that uh transparency is absolutely necessary the type of research dur doing being done in a lab whether it is overseas or in the United States is critical that it's done in the pre proper safety environment uh and that the ethics of the research that we're doing uh should be valid and we are stewards of taxpayer dollars that should be not be not be used in an irresponsible non-transparent manner with that I yield thank you thank you and now recognize Mr Garcia from California for five minutes a question thank you Mr chairman uh thank you Dr daik I'd appreciate you being here um and I want to thank everyone for some good questions that have happened so far uh we all know the subcommittee has a critical mission to prevent future pandemics I think that's why we're we're all here and of course keep Americans safe from threats like covid um and to the extent we're able to do to do that here today I obviously welcome that opportunity um you probably are aware that we have had multiple hearings now investigating the origins of Co 19 um and I want to just remind us the scientific consensus on this point is very clear which is that we do not have any conclusive evidence to determine whether covid sprung from an accidental lab leak or from animal spillover Dr dazak is that a fair assessment in your mind as well I would say the scientific consensus right now is that that by far more likely that covid-19 emerged from the wildlife trade and Wildlife markets of China which employed 14 million people prior to the outbreak there is zero evidence that it emerged from a lab now I want to remind you and as where as as the public that our own federal agencies of course share this lack of this exact lack of confidence of what one determining um origin actually is and we actually have multiple different perspectives from our agencies so our press reports as we all know we have five intelligence agencies that believe in animal spillover with low confidence the FBI thinks with moderate confidence and Department of energy with low confidence in a lab leak and the CIA just doesn't know so from a federal agency perspective there is no conclusive evidence that we have actually actually made now what we do know is there's a lot of um attacks there's a lot of uh thoughts about where certain folks in the Congress believe these labs and these leak or these leaks actually came from now Dr J I'm going to be honest with you as well I share what a lot of my colleagues as concerns about Eco Health alliances practices a lot of them are deeply concerning particularly when it comes to the monitoring and Reporting requirements you had to the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases I think these lapses make a strong case for us as members of Congress to strengthen our country's ability to Monitor and enforce effective biocurity measures and encourage the same of course of our International Community but I also want to just address uh one of the I think is the big elephant in the room today and oftentimes of what you and your organization are accused of did your organization cause the covid-19 pandemic absolutely not thank you and I I say that because we've actually heard that being um have heard that throughout the course of the last few months and I ask this because we have yet of course to focus on real solutions for example like increasing funding to to actually have better efforts to monitor research Grant recipients or improve biocurity the subcommittee also hasn't really talked about tangible ways to increase International cooperation to achieve these goals but we have heard a lot of implicit and explicit suggestions that Eco Health Alliance was part of some broader conspiracy to SP spark a global pandemic now doctor were you ever directed by a government official let's say Dr fouchy to intentionally manufacture a viral pandemic of course not and I wanted to just ask you that as ridiculous as that question sounds because as we know uh folks have actually suggested this there's actually we've had a member of even this our own subcommittee mentioned that Dr fouchy was trying to and I quote create a vaccine pandemic experiment mandate vaccine be developed from it and have the American Tax fars foot the bill so proponents of this conspiracy generally seem to think your organization was somehow involved so I'm sure you've heard this before do you want to for the record again clear this up well it's it's um painly false um there is no evidence for that whatsoever and there is incredibly substantial evidence that this virus emerged through so-called natural zootic Origins and I might add that we we're right now as we speak seeing a global panzu and outbreaking wildlife of high pathogen Aven flu it's now in our cattle it's in our people and here we are debating lab bios safety which has nothing to do with um with the Cod I appreciate that I think you know we've we've heard also uh not not just that somehow Dr fouchi or you or your or you know your organization was involved but that maybe was a Chinese made bioweapon which for actually the same member of the subcommittee also has has said in the past I think what what's clear is that this subcommittee um needs to actually real focus on on good faith investigations supporting additional research ensuring that our that grantees are actually given the support that they need and I think what's also really clear is that we have opportunities in this appropriation cycle and others in the future to actually collaborate support HHS support the work that scientists are doing across this country and that we stop making these conspiracy theorists arguments and attacks that AR really helping us solve any future pandemics that we may and we know will experience in the future agreed and so I want to thank you for being here again I think there are real concerns that that that we've had and certainly um uh that been shared today but I think we should focus on what we actually know to be true and move in that direction and with that I yield back now recognize Miss leco from Arizona for five minutes of questions thank you Mr chair uh thank you for being here um I think I heard you say earlier today that the safety measures in the Chinese labs are the same as in the US did did you say or something similar to that I said they they follow the same biosafety levels for coron virus research as we do here in the US yes and so you said that wi followed the same us standards or or us standards the mandated rules in China are the same as in the US I have the paperwork here so help me understand because I've been told that wi is a biological safety level two and US labs are required to be biological safety level three for the type of research that was done so how is it that you say they're the same well because that's with all due respect that's not correct the there are there are um the BIOS safety levels are in the Bios safety microbiological and biomedical laboratory manual six Edition for the US and they mandate that for bat SARS related Corona viruses on page 452 it's states that there're for bsl2 in culture bsl2 or three for inv Vivo work in mice so those are the same standards that are used in China they're the same standards that are published they're the same standards that I'm being repeatedly asked questions about and and um and being attacked over yet here they are in black and white in in the manuals that describe the work that should be done in the US good I'll look at it closer um the other thing I think you said earlier is that you still don't know that there is a Chinese military presence or collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of orology is that what you said no what I said was that I I know I have no knowledge of any military activity in the Wuhan lab and that is correct and how do you know that because the state department this is what the state department said the US state department said in 2021 a fact sheet it says secrecy and non-disclosure are a standard practice for Beijing for many years the United States has publicly raised concerns about Chinese past biological weapons work which Beijing has neither documented nor demonstr demonstrably eliminated despite its clear obligations under the biological weapons convention despite the wi presenting itself as a civilian institution the United States has determined that the wi has collaborated on Publications and secret projects with the Chinese military and this was in 2021 so you just deny what the state department says that this something doesn't add up I completely agree because it's the same state department that reviews our proposals to an age and allows us to work with that lab if if the state department considers that to be a military lab surely they would have said no the wiv is not appropriate for doing this research however they reviewed it and said yes it's appropriate and allowed now I don't know I don't have access to what the state department reviews and knows but something doesn't add up there because it's them that g gave us the goahead had um to work with with WV if they' have said no this is not appropriate we would have not done so obviously I'm going to ask you a question similar to what the congresswoman from Hawaii asked and you know you got a lot of money uh Echo Health Alliance got a lot of money from uh grants from the US government from the taxpayers and I'm trying to understand if you went there if anybody from your company went to the Wuhan Institute of orology to actually inspect what was going on cuz you keep saying no there was no gain of function research I think my colleague right here Mrs melan Takis asked that and you said no didn't happen how do you know that if you didn't go there well what I said is that um the research we did is not going to function that is correct um our staff visited Wuhan um repeatedly During the period we were working with them we're not working with them any um I visited them repeatedly we had online meetings calls Zoom calls exchanged megabytes of information on a weekly monthly basis of raw data and reports and and sequences it's a very active collaboration and after 15 plus years 20 years of doing that um you get to know um how um reliable and accurate their data are and the working standards that they use so you do get a good knowledge of whether that lab is adequately protected or not and it is and it was and um I don't have access to any information from the St you know I'm I'm hoping uh someday that we are going to get to the bottom of the truth of this I don't know that we ever are um because I'm hearing totally opposite information from reliable sources than possibly you have said and so we have two competing theories and and we can't get to the bottom of it it's very frustrating I hope you understand that I hope you trust scientists the thing is we've had scientists on both sides okay that say totally opposite of what you're saying and so and so that's we've had testimony over and over my time is up but I hope you understand that the American people just want to get to the bottom of this and so do I because I don't want this to happen again and so do do we and that is why we do our work every day in some very difficult places I now recognize Mr cloud from Texas for five minutes of questions thank you chairman so you acknowledg uh you've received a grant 2014 niid uh awarded an eha Grant entitled understanding the risk of B Corona coronav virus emergence to your organization correct yeah that's not um and once Co break outbreak happened you labeled the lab leak Theory as conspiracy theory you're with that's not what I said actually I said that there were conspiracy theories at the time that we wrote about in our letter in lset including HIV um sequences in the virus and snake DNA very bizarre things your your opinion was used to help you you said trust the scientist um not necessarily because of you I don't know that you had any contact with social media companies did you have contact with social media companies uh during that time well I've I've posted things on social media with as far as having you know a number of the scientists their opinions no were were were banned uh our government even worked to help ban some of those scientific opinions that's not we that differed than yours um do you would do you would you acknowledge that that was bad practice at least that our government helped work with uh social media companies to help ban certain scientific I mean if a social benefited science do you think that was I I think there's been a lot of misinformation there still is on social media I think it's good that social media companies are going to scientist to get information about whether the the uh the data they're putting out is true or false there there were virologists who had you know years of experience who had differing opinions who were silenced uh license threatened to be revoked all those different kind of things uh in the name of science you know we had fouchy almost declare himself to be science uh and that you know those kind of things I think put a deep distrust in the American people for some of the institutions we're now asking them to rely upon looking back do you think there was any error in that are you concerned about that or do you think hey don't I think you know as I said a moment in statement the the emotions during a pandemic are very high we have loved ones we've all had that we've we've all had our children infected by Co and worrying that they're going to get really sick um and we know people who've died and it's very upsetting very tragic I think the emotion lead to um a sort of hyper reaction to some of these things and uh I think that that we should trust our scientists and I think that the head of a government Institute that's set up to to work on infection KN knowing you know now do you regret working with the the lab in Wuhan um look our mission is to um prevent pandemics pandemics emerge you regret working with them pmic not debating what you knew then to do this we we don't do this because we want to go and work in in foreign countries and risk Our Lives pandemics emerged there if we can stop them there we stop them getting here that's what we do it's written into our mission there's no evidence to a lab leak Theory that's what you've said today a couple times um what I said there's zero verifiable scientific evidence zero uh okay but we have evidence that the Wuhan lab destroyed data um does that concern you at all yes any lab that destroys data concerns okay knowing what you know now do you reget working with the Wuhan lab as I said do you think working with the labs that destroy data uh are um is sound I I have no choice we we work in countries where diseases emerge whether they're our allies or our competitors um because our goal is to stop those diseases from so one of the troubling things for us when we go home because we're representing the taxpayers who no doubt are you know most of them are not virologists or scientists or but but they're going we're paying money to fund research in a country that's in unrestricted Warfare against us that destroys evidence uh and and then you still are like well you know maybe we should continue working with them and I recognize those concerns absolutely but if we want to prevent the next pandemic coming out of China how do we know when it's going to happen we need scientists on the ground to get that information so we we better prep do you maintain that the lab leak theory is a plausible Theory today as I've said all the way through this it's possible but extremely unlikely and and having done it over you would continue to work with the Wuhan lab well I I um there a lab in China that does virology reseearch this weighs into like your your organization is still receiving taxpayer funds and you're still making decisions on which Labs you across the world that you we don't in China we don't work with the Wuhan lab they depart from fing right but but the taxpayer right now is trusting you in some Essence through the various recommended channels to uh make decisions on on who we're working with and if you're if you're picking labs and you don't think it's an issue that a lab destroy data and that's not a disqualifying Factor that's a concern well let let me remind you we didn't pick a lab we proposed to do research with that lab the state department and NIH reviewed it and said that lab was on a list of labs that have preferred to work with well I'm out of time and I know Dr fouy will be here but there's the quote layers of accountability have become layers of plausible deniability uh it is a and so we'll have to dig into that because my time's up information about it and now recognize Dr Joyce from Pennsylvania for five minutes of questions thank you chairman wer for convening what I feel is a critical meeting it is imperative that we are an oversight body who conduct an adequate in investigation and ensure that the American taxpayer dollars are being spent judiciously and within the law Dr dasic why did you try to downplay the fact that shei zingle and other Chinese scientists will be working on your proposed Grant to DARPA I did not I told DARPA did you make any edits to your proposal in order to obscure Chinese involvement in this work no it's clear specifically did you alter the number of investigators in initial application in follow-up application were the numbers the same the there there was only one application and so that number has always been the number of Chinese investigators that you worked with the application that was submitted to the agency is the only matter of record anything else is a draft there are ideas that can be revised and changed following up on some of my colleagues questions and I appreciate the candidness that we continue to Pepper you with because I think we have conflicting answers where are the sequences stored and who has that database um the there those are two different questions I know that um the sequences that we acquired from our work with with the waran Institute of orology are stored at Ecco Health Alliance and have been shared publicly through genbank the NIH database published and and uh shared with this committee and other committees um that we have other sequences that we acquired um before our grant was renegotiated which we're currently analyzing and will publish do you feel you have all the sequences from the Wuhan Institute of virology well we I believe we have all the sequences of any relevance to covid having said that you're recognizing that data was destroyed you feel that you have all the sequences yes I do that were not destroyed there's a reason for that you have all the sequences that were not destroyed no I think I think we have we had all available SARS Corona virus related bat coron virus sequences prior to the outbreak I'd requested from we that they send us all their data so we publish a paper together summarizing the whole of the work that they do and we do they included in in the data they sent us sequences that weren't collected with our us funding so we had access to all their information of any relevance to covid that was before the outbreak so of course it didn't matter back then after the outbreak great point it didn't matter back then but subsequent to that we recognize that there has been data that has been destroyed so giving us data that doesn't matter is irrelevant to this the data matters a lot it didn't matter to them whether they sent it to us or not now we have the covid pandemic and this huge geopolitical concern there wasn't a single request for any of those sequences to be moved or changed we published them in in the summer of 2020 in a US journal with um uploaded and sorry into us uh NIH gem Bank data so you have to count on the goodwi of the Wuhan Institute of iology in order to meet your Grant re requirements how does not not violate the terms of the Wuhan Institute of vy's debarment um well we don't work with them they're debart so you have no further contact with them what I said is we don't work with them we don't you have further contact with them of course we have contact um under the under the terms of my renegotiated R1 with with uh with NI we have to publish data from that work of course we have to send copies of drafts of papers get them to check and make sure that that they've included everything that we've got everything correct so of course we have contact with them do you feel given all the concerns that have been raised during this hearing that Ecco Health should continue to receive taxpayer funds Ecco Health's work is critical there our set in my own in statement to preventing the next pandemic of course we should receive federal work we've we've worked very carefully and precisely with all of the federal funding we've had we've reported on time in every other instance the one instance we were unable to the NH system locked us out um you can we haven't been provided with data there was an employee who made a phone call but you're not sure they still work for Ecco health so that's still suspect employee doesn't work for an so you have documentation that your employees reached out you have that employee that you could produce for us every bit of documentation I've I've got we've supplied I think I have a few more other pieces that I can supply I think that's important that you supply that because we sitting on this side are responsible stewards of the taxpayer dollars but I feel that you at Ecco Health are not responsible stewards of the taxpayer dollars that have been shared for you and I feel that based on the information and based on the actions that we have seen I believe that you should never receive taxpayer dollars again thank you Mr chairman and I yield back now recognize Dr McCormack from Georgia for five minutes of questions Mr uh Dr daak um how much was the grant that you were reinstated uh given for I think it was $2.2 Million um some of the money was never reinstated okay uh your understanding the risk of back coronavirus emergency Grant was eventually reinstated by the uh National Institute of allergies and infectious diseases uh despite the fact that Wan ins Institute of V biology was barred from receiving federal funds uh I think that was just discussed at aium so I won't kind of go into too much detail on that but your your Grant was reinstated based on uh probably advice that you got from some people and I just want to kind of go into that a little bit did you have any conversations with your Grant about uh about your Grant reinstatement with Dr David Morin the senior advisor Dr fouchy I don't know you don't know if you had a discussion I don't know probably I I don't know I'd have to check my records did Dr menen ever give you any advice on how to reinstate your photo your oh oh um yeah I mean I I asked everybody who had any knowledge about the way NH works on any possible strategy so you did have discussions with many many scientists both those at NIH and elsewhere yeah so do were you aware that Dr David Moren was communicating with you on his personal Gmail account to avoid uh Foya and public accountability I I was aware that he was communicating with me on his personal Gmail account sometimes yes for personal matters so personal matter about reinstating a public Grant well it's not his job to reinstate it this is me asking his advice as a friend and colleague about reating a Federal grant got it yeah I mean we we do you find it problematic that a senior adviser of Dr fouchi the head of niad was communic with you on Gmail rather than official capacity about an official Grant well when I'm talking to him by email about personal and uh security issues and political attacks security issues so you talked with him Security on his Gmail account yeah I talked him about the attacks of my house okay officially um when you're your Grant was officially terminated in April of 2020 um do you think that Dr Morin underminded nad's decision by advising you on how to get it reest well if that were true then everybody else at who advised me on how to get it reinstated including the official reinstatement procedure would also have undermined fair enough stop it getting reined did you make any did you make any insertions that you would be able to obtain information from the Wuhan lab in regards to your research when you were trying to get your re reinstatement of the grant the assertion was that the US tax who' funded the work we did in Wuhan would get a fair shot at then getting that information and making it public to protect the US taxpayer from future coronavirus threats that's a very um valid and Noble so you assumed that you would have access to the the that that information is that correct we already had access to in you have access to it now after a certain day we had access to genomic sequences from Wuhan yes yes we do okay where the where are those samples today I'm talking about sequences not samples this is exactly as I was saying earlier people commonly make that mistake um the samples are in the freezers in Wuhan the sequences the genetic information do you have access to the sequences not the yes I do and I stated that clearly to NAD all the way through the negotiations I also stated clearly we did not have access to the samples they were in the freezer they will probably remain their and Wuhan is no longer receiving any tax dollars correct correct okay when it comes to your research and and I know that we're talking some semantics but I understand the SE in um by the way have you ever found any um consequential sequence of of this this virus in the bats that you've studied yeah we found a lot of consequential sequences yeah so in other words are you finding the Corona virus that's infected human beans in the bat population in general that continue to survive oh no no that's a different question so I would make the case that maybe from the from the very beginning and we've talked about this at nauseum I think we haven't found it in any animal samples despite massive research to begin with and yet we continue to pour millions of dollars into something that should exist as as a physician as physician that just talked to you before uh we spent millions and millions of dollars and hundreds of samples for different species all over China and have no evidence that it's in a in a in a animal uh origin but yet we continue to send millions of dollars to try to find uh evidence that now we can't get to essentially uh and and that's really what you're here for is is that's why we're upset that we feel like that this grant was uh not misrepresented it was it was seeking information from the wrong source to begin with and that the grant um principle of the way we get our grants was Mr represented to and that's what we're all kind of angry about right now um well the grant was scored in the top 3% of grants in that in that review period it was considered high impact and that's exactly the problem sir that's exactly the problem it was scored that well because it is high impact I know why it was scored that well but I would disagree with you vehemently and that's why I think we're here to make statement but I I think I pointed out in my own in St so we had um from the work we've done in China we now have lab assays that can be tested against um vaccines drugs and Therapeutics to fight covid to save people's lives that's how science Works how you I now recognize majority staff for not more than 30 minutes of questions uh thank you sir Dr daik my name is Mitch benzy and I'm the staff director for the majority staff uh I have a number of questions but want to follow up on some of the questions that the members asked over the last couple of hours um in response to Mr Griffith uh pointing out that you were still making edits to the year five progress report 7 months past its due date the year five progress report is only supposed to contain information from year five is that correct the NIH requested the year five program progress report two years lat no no no no no it was due September 30th and it covered the grant period of 2018 to 2019 correct yeah yeah so the report is not supposed to cover information outside of that Grant period Well I think ni is always happy to receive any information they can on Research you're doing that that has relevance to the goals there are no strict rules on that you testified that you were editing it because you gathered more information but that information should have gone into the year six report no what I what I said I wasn't allowed to finish what we did was we anal Iz the data and we came up with an estimate of how many people are likely infected per year we eventually published that information it's about 60,000 the the estimate in the year five report was then revised again it's about 60,000 people a year across an area that includes 300 plus million people so both things are correct that this is a rare event and it infects a lot of people every year um I appreciate that I have some more questions about that but we'll get to it you've testified here today that the on the year five report being delayed that a employee of Eco Health made a phone call to niad who is that employee I don't know it was one of our admin staff it might have been Alexa Kamura Dr Kamura it might have been other people who were working there at the time um it would have been from one of their phones we've looked at the records we can't find it but we we believe there were repeated phone calls to um sad GMA to U who was the Grant Management officer at the time there were repeated emails I've got the list of them here and she never responded um and then one question that wasn't touched on by the members is Eco Health currently drafting a laboratory standard or biosafety manual fulfilled bios safety yes and you're pitching it to the CDC we're not pitching it we're going to make it public for everybody in the world to see you're asking the federal government to adopt it though correct um well we're simply putting it out there and and if people want to use some of those rules that's great because it's the very highest standard of fiby safety there is have you met with the CD regarding the manual um I think that the person writing it has spoken with CDC and talk them about it yeah and wh and others um you also referenced that the BIOS safety standards in the US and China um were similar for the work that you were doing what document were you referencing it's the uh bmbl 6 Edition bi safety and microbiological and biomedical Laboratories sixth edition did has the page 452 has the Chinese government memorialized the bmbl they have their own in fact every country has its own national standards there's no one global standard but we looked at those national standards translated them from Mandarin they are the same in uh us grants are sub grantees required to follow us standards or foreign country standards I believe us grantees working in labs in the US would follow by safety standards for the US I believe that um Labs that are funded through the US government in foreign countries would probably follow their national standards and if there were discrepancies between those and the US standards some arrangement would have to be made this some uh negotiation or debate with the funding agency that was not the case in our in our work I appreciate they're the same the standards are the same they're right there um I would also appreciate if you can produce the original Mandarin version of the Chinese document we'll dig it up um you testified to I I forget uh which member it was but you testified every bit of documentation I have I have supplied that's patently for what for what aspect that's all you said I okay but what was it in relation to then I can understand what I believe it was in relation to um the year five report yeah have you supplied drafts of the year five report to the committee um I I'll have to check I think so yeah the answer is no uh instead of supplying the drafts you supplied a link to the Foya Library which has drafts in I believe no but we asked you for the it is your responsibility we will absolutely provide those pretty quickly not a problem all right I'm going to go through some of the questions for documents that we've previously asked that we have not received yet uh in Ecco house custody do you have communications with HHS regarding the reinstatement of your ro1 yes do you have uh in Eco house custody do you have communications with HHS regarding the suspension or Department of the Wuhan Institute not to my knowledge in Eco house custody do you have communications with the Wuhan Institute regarding its suspension or Department with with the Wuhan in not to my knowledge um to the Committees you produced One email between yourself and the Wuhan Institute regarding requesting the laboratory notebooks in response to NIH compliance efforts is that the entirety of the communications you have regarding that issue yes you never followed up well we never received a response we were told by NH not to communicate with Wuhan not to work with them um I believe HHS wrote to Wuhan by Vi PS and it was sent back with Return to Sender that was the deartment memo that wasn't a request for laboratory notes I'll get back to the laboratory yeah um we touched on the progress reports uh do you have any Communications in Eco house custody regarding the renewal of the ro1 yes with the whve I'll check probably I don't know did you notify the wh that they were no longer on your Grant Oh you mean did did yeah I I'll check I mean probably yes um have you ever communicated regarding the issues we discussed today on an email other than your Eco Health email no on April 12th 2024 in response to a letter from chairman wrip to Boston University You released some emails on your website I want to discuss one of them it's uh between you and Dr Moren who we've talked about and the date of the email was April 26 2020 um it was two days after your Grant was terminated and in this email you wrote David we will communicate with you via Gmail from now on was it he that suggested using his Gmail or was that you telling him to only use his Gmail I'm not sure but I believe he he's repeatedly said to me by phone and in emails and elsewhere that um for for stuff that's not as official business he prefers to receive it to his Gmail so I'm going to comply with that and that's consistent with what you testified previously you said I and when I would write to Dr Moren about official NIH related issues I would use his NIH address when I wrote to him about personal matters that weren't part of his job to my understanding I would use his Gmail that email that you released discussed setting up a call with NIH officials about your Grant how to respond to your Grant termination why your Grant work was important the official niad strategic plan and how you spent your money pursuant to a federally funded Grant those are all NIH related but I wasn't requesting David moris to set up a call for me that would have been official you have a misunderstanding of federal record retention laws he is discussing His official business again that's David moren's business I I don't know why he does that he he explained to me for personal stuff use Gmail for official business use NIH His official business is to advise the director of nyad and I there are many many emails I've sent him that gives him information to pass on to the directorate of niad um to inform them on emerging diseases this wasn't that this was about a grant that had been terminated by the president of the United States we have no idea what that's also not true it was terminated by Dr Lower well I I heard the president of the United States say and will end it quickly and within a week it was gone and Dr Collins testified under penalty of perjury that he agreed with every action that was taken against you this was not ended by the president of the United States when was the last time that you spoke with or otherwise corresponded with Dr Moren probably yesterday did you discuss how you would testify today no okay um shifting to uh the outbreak of covid-19 um China first reported an unrecognized pneumonia December 31st 2019 and China did not mention that it was a coronavirus in that report just undiagnosed pneumonia they didn't identify it as a Corona virus until January 7th and then did not share the sequence until January 11th when did you first hear about the virus I first heard rumors about a virus on December the 30th uh 2019 who told you someone in China told me what do they do oh they work in public health for who I think they're a free agent um they they run their own company or their own business what company I don't know so I'll have to check my records and you I mean bear in mind that people in China um creating rumors about this were later on arrested and put under severe penalty I mean we didn't know how verifiable that information was I didn't publish it um so we just were trying to find out what we could um and you testified previously that this person I told you that they had identified a Corona virus that was not SARS but was 20% different is that correct yes and covid-19 is almost 20% or a little bit more it was um incredibly accurate um data in the end when we look back on it they were right uh when you were told this did you inform the US Government well at the time I was told it it was a it was a rumor and a myth so no that would have been a mistake what I did do was publish it the next day um make a statement publicly on Twitter um I also informed ProMed which ProMed mail which is a widely used um system for getting rapid information about outbreaks out to the world they'd already heard the same rumors they published it the next day as well but they were still publishing undiagnosed pneumonia not coron virus no but they well I'm not sure what they said on the next day but I think we both put out um uh um important Communications that something's going on we need to know more about it and then I think I talked about our coronavirus research kind of hinting heavily this may be a Corona virus but we couldn't verify it so to to tell the public that there's a Corona virus would have been a huge mistake what if it turned out not to be Dr Eddie Holmes and Dr Jeremy Ferrar said they have information um that it was the virus was sequenced prior to Christmas by us genomics company does that track with your understanding or by a Chinese genomics company from what I know now I I believe that's where the information I got came from it was from the sequence data from a private sector company that was doing the work for the Wuhan investigation if uh they had sequenced it prior to Christmas they would know that it was a coronavirus correct someone would well they'd be highly sus suspicious that it was you'd need to verify it I mean don't forget that whenever there's a new outbreak of something we have to verify and verify again before you go public the same thing's happening now with for instance Aven flu fragments of of of RNA in milk it it would be Reckless and and and uh and a problem for public health to say there's virus in the milk until you've verified whether there is or isn't it's the same story with this I'm going to shift gears back to the Wuhan Institute prior to the pandemic was the Wuhan Institute attempting to start a live bat Colony apparently so did you have any firsthand knowledge of that not at the time I publicly stated that it wasn't no um in addition to bad samples uh to your knowledge was the Wuhan Institute also analyzing Pengalin samples I'm not sure but I do know that there was someone in China we'd met um a Dr Tonk who um seems to have had a Pengalin positive Corona virus um earlier and was working on it and getting ready for publication yeah does I'm not sure if he works at the W or not does the Wuhan Institute have the ability to genetically engineer viruses without leaving a trace I don't know um you touched on this a little bit in in your testimony and mentioned the 2020 paper where the primary author was Alice latine yes um and testified previously to us uh to the best of my knowledge I'm fairly confident this is the case that every gen genetic sequence of SARS related Corona viruses that the whiv had both from our work that we funded and from any work they'd done separately was in a paper that we' submitted to a US journal and we'd submit into the US NIH database gen B Bank there were a few after the fact that we got from the wiiv and I put into gen bank and we notified NIH later on only a handful um and sitting here today you're still fairly confident that every genetic sequence of SARS related coron viruses the wh had was published in the latine paper yes what was the time scope and the methodology of the letin paper well it was the methodology we used in China for for over the last 15 years what was the time scope of the samples um I'm not sure I think it's a uh 20 to 2015 or something I'm I'm not sure I'd have to check did the Wuhan Institute collect samples after 2015 I don't know is it possible that the Wuhan Institute collected samples after 2015 yes is it possible that the Wuhan Institute hasn't analyzed these samples yes is it possible that they haven't published these samples yes so is it possible that you didn't actually publish every virus the Wuhan Institute has what I said to you was that we published every virus of relevance to Sarco Corona viruses from our work in China no you said from your work and the Wuhan Institute provided you examples that they collected okay so it's possible that they have hidden some viruses from us that that we don't know about yes of course I appreciate that um it's to the best of my knowledge and I'm trying to help in anyway I can um do you know if the Chinese government deleted any sequences or samples I don't know uh we've discussed your Grant work a lot um and you've studied stated unequivocally many times today in private testimony publicly that eoh Health did not fund the whiv to conduct gain of function research um this has been directly contradicted by witness testimony Dr tabac testified that while your research did not meet the definition to be regulated by the P3 Co it did fall under the definition of gain of function and Dr baric Who is a world-renowned coronav vir coronav virologist and expert in gain of function testified that the work described in your year five progress report was quote absolutely a gain of function phenotype and he went so far to say as quote you can't argue with that you disagree with them well I have a letter from NIH that says our work is not going a function you have testimony from Dr barck Who Says absolutely it was both out there I mean I I I tend to go with the regulatory Authority on this which is NIH right um during its compliance efforts with your Grant NIH requested you provide the underlying lab notebooks from the whv um you responded that you did not have access to them but that you would ask the whff did you know that you had to have access to them under your Grant terms well we checked on that and at the time that we were requested the lab notebooks it is not true that we had to have access to lab notebooks in a foreign subrecipient that was that rule then came into play from NIH later Dr Tac testified that it was uh part of the standard Grant terms and policies at the time of your Grant we checked the cfrs look we've received dozens of letters from an H with listing CFR code of federal regulations we check them all they do not state that it's a fact uh you said here and we have the email and we did try to get them by the way well try might be a strong word we previously disc the one email that you sent to the wiiv where you forwarded the Letter to Dr shei and said that you could answer question number one but you can't answer question number two um you never actually requested the lab notebooks you just forwarded the letter uh you testified a few minutes ago the we never responded to that email correct and you never emailed again correct why not because clearly the um wiv is not going to respons to further happy to email them again if you want me to look um we were instructed by ni to terminate our work with the wh in 2020 we then had our grant terminated we then had a um huge geopolitical issues between the US and China very specifically around the origins of covid and we were then requested by NH to do something that isn't in the code of regulations and that's to request lab notebooks we did that wib did not respond we will do again and I predict they will not respond again um if you wish me to um but look every time we um act as an agent for the US government in seeking things that are not required by codes of federal regulations we put our own staff at risk um around the world um but we're happy to do it again if you so wish um in there's a a dispute whether or not an experiment was conducted in year four or year five it's the experiment that Dr Tac reported to Congress that there's no dispute it was conducted in year four did you have the dates um we submitted the results from the experiment back in 2018 I think so it was just prior to that submission you submitted it in the year four report correct yeah NIH disputes whether or not those are the same experiments do you have the date that the experiment was conducted no and again this is another issue of of um this is something that I I could ask with and it's highly unlikely we're going to get a response where Dr dear from the federal government I mean it's you put me in a very unusual position when Dr going about 10 years to a debard agency asking them questions which um we know the Chinese government um are not interested in answering when Dr laow started compliance efforts did you reach out to Dr shei and ask her if it occurred in year four or year five did I ask Dr she if the experiment in question occurred in year four or year five oh yes yes what did she say she said the expect I asked let me just respond by saying every single request every single Theory no matter how bizarre um a conspiracy theory or a real hypothesis on something unusual that had gone on in China we check our notes we check everything and at at the time when um NIH suggested that the year five experiment was different to year four I checked and we were told by web that it was the same experiment they were the pathological findings from the did you verify it with the underlying experiment notebooks it's impossible for us to do that we don't have those but at that point you could have no it was the same situation this is at a time when our grant was suspended with honorous conditions that included identifying where an allegedly missing person was from with um going to China and seeking a vile of virus to return to the US these things are illegal um it was a very difficult position to put a grantee in um to be requesting that so you took Dr she's word for it that they were you didn't have any proof at the time of the year four experiment that it I have no other way to verify um you were asked by Miss takuda about access to um un um samples previously paid for by the US government um and I want to read the exact testimony from Dr uring so that you can understand what we're working off of the question did Eco health was it Ecco Health that told you they had the samples answer they did they did give me an approximate number I don't recall what it was question did they tell you that the samples were in their possession answer I believe I asked you have access to these samples do you have access to these samples I think that to the best of my recollection that's how I phrased the question and I got an affirmative answer question you asked do you have access and they responded Yes answer this was Peter daik yes question there wasn't an elaboration on the yes answer I did not ask further questions I took his repres representation as truthful um you testified a couple minutes ago that you were very forthright with NIH and niad that you actually didn't have access to the samples correct Dr uraling lying Dr heralding is the statement she just read out she says she doesn't recall I believe I think that clearly Dr reing um either wasn't in the conversation where I clearly stipulated we do not not have access to those samples we do have access to the sequences or perhaps she's mistaken sequences for samples but whatever um one might tease apart from her um memory what matters is the the record which is the email sent to NH proposing the work to be done and the revised specific aims which clearly State no further samples will be brought out of China and that sequences are already in Eco Health's possession and we don't have those emails so we will happily share them with you of course um and the samples are still in the custody of the Wuhan Institute well unless they they're not but my to the last of my knowledge they were in the freezes in Wuhan is over 15,000 of them um is there a benefit to having the samples versus just the sequences you can in essence read you an experiment to prove the results correct and and you might find out more information from that you could do deep deep sequencing but at this point we do have incredible amount of information from those samples and you testified previously that if the Wuhan Institute does more work on those samples that you quotee have an understanding to be able to request and gain access to the new data is that memorialized in a memo or contract I don't know I'll have to check but yeah that that is the understanding that with with a sort of um you know no matter what the politics around the world scientists from different countries try and maintain open channels of communication it happened in the Cold War it happens with our Rivals and competitors I think it's very important for the American people that we keep those communication channels open had to ask so yes I will I will try and do that have you had to request access to any new data no but we've we've been able to um get new data yes from them from China yes with use from the Wuhan Institute from the Wuhan Institute of orology of course um and you testified a little bit earlier that you've had communication with I I might add that we've got 17 years of research we've done there some of it's not yet published the new data comes in the form of here's a publication to be made public and that's a very valuable and important resource and you testified earlier that you have had communication with the Wuhan Institute in furtherance of the reinstated ro1 Grant um I'm not sure that it was in furtherance of a reinst well if you're requesting data that you were paid for by the United States to analyze then that would be in furtherance the communications I've had with Wuhan a typical scientific collaborative have you had any Communications with the Wuhan Institute that would impact your ro1 Grant I'm not sure I'd have to check I mean I'm just not sure um are you aware that the Wuhan Institute is not just procurement debard they are non-procurement debard as well I don't know what that means but I'll you'll have to it means that the Wuhan Institute is not allowed to have a substantial impact over any federally funded government activity if the Wuhan Institute today canceled your access to samples would that impact your research well we don't have access to samples so that's a moot point you have access to the data generated from the samples correct yes if the Wuhan Institute cut off your access to the data would that substantially impact your research efforts um not for the purposes of that R1 because we already have the data in our um at Eco Health Alliance um yesterday there was an article in National Review regarding a recently made Grant from usaid to Eco health and a spokesman for Eco Health gave a long statement but also said quote Eco health is no longer partnering with any Chinese research entities is that true U certainly for federal funding yes correct that's not what he said he said re ecoo is no longer partnering with any Chinese research entities do you have any partnersh I don't believe we I don't believe right now we have any contractual relationships with any organization in China but you're so I think that's correct from from the way he's um he's speaking yeah you're going to check on if there's a contractual Arrangement regarding the data from the new from the unanalyzed samples there's no contractual relationship so a gentleman's agreement that the Chinese Communist party will give the us what we request I'm not speaking with the Chinese Communist party I'm speaking withus that may be disputed um on April 16th 2020 you tweeted the wive did not have a culture of a virus related to SARS CO2 so it is impossible for accidentally accidental release being the source you've testified a lot today that you don't know what was going on at the wh you don't know all the viruses they have you don't know all the samples you have that you don't know all the research so you don't know that it is impossible for accidental release being the source well what we do know is prior to the outbreak we'd pass the W for every single SAR related back coronav virus sequence not only did they share the ones from the work we were doing together they also shared but sir this is this is the latine paper that only goes to 2015 well let me finish my point they also they also shared data from work they' done themselves without um our involvement so I think that was very very important if they had any other sequences at the time surely they would have been in that in that data dump um and and that that data dump was what was published in the latine paper correct so that only went to 2015 did you ever request all of their SARS related sequences and samples from 2016 to 2019 I requested those data um prior to the outbreak in no in something like uh november-ish or fall of of 2018 we then went back to them repeatedly throughout the process backwards and forwards um any any other data that came would have been requested in 2020 so yes we did ask so the the team methodology is wrong Latina actually published samples that were sequences that were post 2015 no the data from the samples that's what I'm talking about the samples were collected prior to yeah from my understanding um on February 10th 2021 you sent a letter to Congressional leadership that stated zuno spillover is the origin of most infectious emerging infectious diseases including covid-19 this is again unequivocal but you didn't actually know sry to Congressional leadership yeah you on you sent a letter to Congressional leadership it was uh speaker Pelosi uh leader Schumer leader McConnell and leader McCarthy yeah and stated zuntic spillover the transmission of Novel pathogens from animals to humans is the origin of most infectious emerging infectious diseases including covid-19 but the origin is in dispute that sentence is incorrect but it's it's pretty um crystal clear and Undisputed that this is a zoonotic virus the most close relatives are from animals so therefore it's do not to um March 8th 2023 in response to a hearing this subcommittee had and multiple times since including today you have said regarding the diffused proposal quote The Proposal was not funded and the work was not done did you ever solicit private funding for anything regarding diffuse no do you know if the we started this work no then you can't say that the work was not done there is no evidence of the work being done there is no evidence that we've started it there is no evidence that any of the other contractors on the grants started it did you ask I think everybody's been asked at this point repeatedly by did you ask Dr she if she had started any of the proposed work no but again I'm happy to send an email to Dr she say did you begin the work that was proposed the diffused proposal she might not even remember the diffused proposal at this point I doubt that I will receive a response one one of the things that the select subcommittee has been investigating is that it matters what public health officials write down and what they say when you make unequivocal statements that can't possibly be supported by the evidence it matters so what was the unequivocal statement again please The Proposal was not funded and the work was not done the work in the proposal has not been done because you just said you just said you didn't know if the wh did it we the work in the proposal designates which groups do the work that work has not been done we haven't done any of the work Ralph Barrack's group hasn't done any of the work the um the organization that was going to spray um some some uh residue um hasn't done the work to my knowledge all of this is to my knowledge I mean you know obviously one can't know everything I I would suggest clarifying that going forward well then I'm clarifying it right here and now to the very best of my knowledge with strong evidence the work hasn't been done and my last question on March 6 2024 you tweeted the lab leak theory for Co Origins is evidence-free but when testifying regarding submitting your year five progress report late and the fact that Dr low couldn't find evidence to support your claims you testified just because he can't find evidence of that doesn't mean it's not true do you stand by that testimony that the lab leak is evidence free I no that that just because someone can't find evidence of something does not mean it's not true that's what you said when particular knowledge about Dr LA's inquiry that we did contact those um those authorities at ni and his forensic analysis did not go to um checking phone calls he said it in in his testimony so that's why I stated that and I think that stands um the last thing Al I apologize but you've been asked by a number of members including the ranking member about the letter that you authored in the Lancet and you said that you were discussing primarily HIV inserts and snake DNA I want to read for the record what you actually wrote It's We Stand Together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that co9 does not have a natural origin thank you sir I now recognize minori staff for not more than 30 minutes of questions maybe 31 since we went over here yeah thank you Mr chairman Dr dashik thank you for coming in today I think maybe I'll just pick up right where the majority left off that Lancet letter we've talked about it a few times today I'll read just one more time that very same sentence standing together to condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that covid-19 does not have a natural origin so you talked about snakes and you talked about HIV I don't see either of those words in that sentence or in the letter why is that because there's a word limit on letters to Lance it they're not going to allow you to just bang on for a long period of time look at the time at the time we if I could follow up on that you well let me follow first please um at the time we submitted that letter the prevailing theories other than this came from a bat through a zerotic spillover were HIV inserts bioengineered um I think snake DNA and a bioengineered bioweapon virus all of those are conspiracy theories the intelligence agency stated that clearly at the beginning of their report that there is no evidence to support that there never was and there still isn't that's helpful thank you and so I just kind of want to hone in on the exact uh nature of what you're saying I think it's that the word limit wouldn't allow you to fit in the word snake well the word snake wouldn't be enough to make any difference that so I it would have to say instance for example the orig the theories about the um the virus having snake DNA or that it um that it's got HIV inserts or that it's a bio-engineered virus perhaps they were in earlier drafts of the statement but um they're not in that one all right well you're and they were the only prevailing theories other than it came from a xotic spillover sure so as a which is still the prevailing Theory let me let me finish as a reader and writer of the English language how do you think the sentence covid-19 does not have a natural origin reads covid-19 does does not have a natural origin do you read that sentence as being limited to snakes and HIV is that what we said yeah can you read out the context of that please I'm not sure what youan sure that's no problem we stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that covid-19 does not have a natural origin yeah that's what we said then and we stand by it at the time that was the right thing to say do you read that sentence as being limited to snakes and HIV I read I read that s since February 2020 as focusing on those conspiracies that were out there and they were the ones that were out there it's not quite the question as a reader of the sentence how do you read it well first of all you would have to go back in time to 2020 put yourself in the mindset of what was going on back then which were those prevailing theories bioengineered virus snake DNA and HIV inserts Preposterous conspirator and without any evidence whatsoever yeah I just don't think any reasonable reader of that sentence is going to read it that way well the the editor of Lance it read it and approved it 26 of the leading Public Health authorities in the world read it and agreed with it 20,000 plus people signed onto that letter on a public uh statement everybody seemed to read it and understand exactly what it meant and it was correct at the time and we stand by it you talked a little bit about the diffuse application and bmbl and you've talked several times about how the bmbl you know say either says BSL 2 is appropriate or we've heard elsewhere maybe it doesn't actually have a specific requirement at all I I think the thing I want to focus on is your testimony to us in November wasn't just about BMB you told us that you ensured that we've adhered to the same bios safety levels that were used in the US and that were required by the bmbl and those are two different things Ralph Barrett clearly told you that what is used in the US is bsl3 and you knew that that was not the case in Ral Ralph Barrack's entitled to his opinion about best practices which is what he was trying to say in that statement but I have here the language from bmbl sorry just cuz we' heard it right there yeah we've heard it three or four times as I said that's not quite the same thing as what do scientists actually do in the United States well it is actually because they're the rules that govern what scientists actually do so if I follow it is it that you disagree with Dr bar and you don't actually think that it's common in the United States to use bsl3 for this type of work it Ral barck may use it for some types of work uh he may go above and beyond the B bmbl um levels good for him and that's good for us too do you understand him to be an outlier in that respect um there is no outlier if the rules State something differently and I want to just add in the diffused proposal we did not propose to use bsl2 for infection experiments with recombinant viruses we propos bsl3 it's right there in black and white at Ralph Barrack's lab using his high standards higher than the bmbl requires yeah I think the concern is more that you point to the bmbl and I understand that I think but I thought your job was to oversee this line of research and these are the rules that oversee them if your collaborator comes to you and says what we do here in the United States is use a certain level of biosafety and that's not what they do in China and people in the US will freak out I think that distinction is is probably pretty important for somebody in your well I agreed with Dr Barett which is why the BSL 3 is in the proposal not bsl2 the year five report has been talked about a few times as well you said something that I just wanted to follow up on you said something to the effect of look there's a record that I tried to submit that report and that we as a subcommittee have that record I think what you're referring to which we do have and which is not quite what you say it is is a screenshot that your folks initiated the year five report on July 24th of that year and we agree we have that we're all from the NIH system yeah we're all on the same page there the problem is routing the report submitting the report is two years later there's no evidence that you submitted the report in 2019 correct this well that's not quite what you said about an hour and a half ago and I think it's those types of little misrepresentation what did I say an hour and a half ago you told us that there was documentary evidence that you had submitted the report in 2019 what what I have here is a timeline with documentary evidence of attempts to submit the report to open up the system we had a draft of a report back in June we tried to get it in the system and it locked us out I have the record here we'll send any other the evidence that you don't yet have we will send to the committee well I'll distinguish for a starting point I think we have what you're talking about and we went over it in November well we'll find out I'll check might be something that you don't have yet I think it's safe to speak for both sides here to say that if we don't have what you're talking about then at this point that's a pretty big problem as well what you mean if you have extra documents on the year five issue that you have not handled I'm talking about um we've reviewed all of our systems to try and find information to see if we've got any evidence at all that that report was uploaded which we know it was we know we had an inability to get through to the system it locked us out and I'm looking for evidence we may have some here that you don't yet have we will find it and send it to you okay I just want to be really clear that the documentary evidence we do have that I think you might be talking about shows that you all opened up the system I know that yeah I have that written does not show that you submitted or attempted to submit the report well I'm telling you here under oath that we did okay uh I'd like to Pivot to some of the more science heavy aspects of uh really what we've already talked about back in November probably starting with uh you had this detailed back and forth with niak in the summer of 2016 on the question of whether or not the work you were prop proposing was affected by the 2014 Federal pause on gain of function work so niad ultimately decided that your work was not affected by that pause you've said that several times here today I I don't think we have a problem with that decision I have not heard the majority have a problem with that decision so so it's not the decision that is in dispute but I do think we're interested in and would like to focus on some of the arguments you made to niad because their reasoning I think was slightly different from what you were suggesting so I just kind of want to walk through how you I I just want to correct one thing this wasn't wait wait wait this wasn't back and for Dr dasik I let you finish and I was happy to I asked that you do the same so those arguments sort of ran in order and I'd like to touch on them and talk about them yeah the first one I think was pretty easy it was making the point that the 2014 policy should be viewed as applying to SARS because that's what it says SARS but not to the SARS like viruses that you were planning on working with I I think we understand that argument and acknowledge that the pause was a little bit unclear from a textual point of view there so I really don't have too many questions about that you then pivoted though to talk about wi one which I think is that virus that you all were planning to use as a backbone in your experiments and you said to niad that wiv one quote has never been demonstrated to infect humans or cause human disease later in the letter for other reasons you included a parenthetical to an article that's called wi one is poised for human emergence and that article concludes that quote the results indicate that wi one has the ability to directly infect humans I think it's really hard for us as readers to understand how that context was not addressed in your letter um both can be correct it it is correct that it has never infected people to our knowledge and it's also correct that it infects human cells in the lab not people there's no evidence of that now that we cite that paper in the response to NIH NIH is the is the body that oversees this if an should have said wait a minute this paper that you site yourselves suggests that we need to rethink we would have not gone ahead with the experiment don't forget we proposed alternatives to this work um we we've sent them a paragraph of modeling studies we could do uh pseudovirus work we could do if they decided that the work should not go ahead ni had every possibility every um reason to go through that and say no if they wanted to and we would have not done that work this is something to ask NIH not Ecco Health Alliance we did our best our best shot at trying to explain why we believe the work was not um covered by the G of function as they asked us what alternatives we could do and then it's an that makes a decision on that yeah so you cited the article for a different reason you would have had to open the article and read it to appreciate what I just quoted from it and I understand that I think you're drawing a distinction between human cells in a lab and a human receptor in a lab so I I think the eventual conclusion of that is it does not count until a live Human walks in and drops to the ground sick no until it infects a person uhuh that's a big difference between infecting a cell in a lab and also you point out that you would have to read open the paper and read it surely the NIH system that deliberates on these issues actually opens the papers and reads them as Des scientists I mean we assume that that is this group is doing they they they know the literature they're going to make a um a knowledgeable decision based on their knowledge of literature which we cited in our letter to them yeah so the concern is less on the back end of the reader of your letter because we do assume that those folks are knowledgeable and they'll open the article the concern is more on the front end as a grantee that that article's out there and you didn't say anything about its conclusion we cited it you cited it for a different reason which we listed the paper in our to ni yes you did you managed not to include the title of that paper in your email I noticed well if the citation there the title will be there if if not they can look it up on the web but it's a well-known paper at the time from the group that were already doing similar work they knew about it surely they they funded it actually surely they knew about that work if the paper's results were true that wiv Wan quote has the ability to directly infect humans would that be a problem for your argu that wi one has never been demonstrated to infect humans if wi one had been demonstrated to infect people then that argument that I made would not be true so that would be a problem it had not therefore it was not don't worry about the human cells and human cells are not humans they cells in a lab it's a very different thing any any biologist will tell you that same as mice are different to humans you know you step up from the um cell Line work to the um Mouse work to then we know from other work that people do in primates and the rest of it it's a big gap between a virus that can infect a cell in a lab and one that can actually infect people in the wild so the progression from there went to well because wi one is about 10% distant from SARS and the spikes that we want to insert are getting progressively more distant from there it seems progressively less likely that any of these chimeric viruses would be more pathogenic more transmissible we talked about this in November you hopefully explained to us that the theory was okay we know that SARS 1 is a human pathogen uh we know of 95 or 97% SARS like viruses that simply are not able to infect humans and so it seems reasonable to hypothesize that as you move away from SARS you have reduced human pathogenicity I think what we struggle with a little bit is at the time if you know that SARS one is a human pathogen and you know that a 95% SARS light cannot infect humans and we know that we won at 90% similar it seems as if it it can at the very least infect human cells it seems as if it would be reasonable to think that there might just not be a linear relationship in this family of viruses if that were the case why didn't ni come back to us and say well actually we we we refute your suggestion this was the standard thought at the time scientifically that that the further you go away from that evolutionarily it's the less chance of it's going to be a significant pathogen NIH had every opportunity to review that and say actually we disagree you're not going to do that experiment we would have said okay can we do the alternative that's non-infectious I'm sure that we would have gone ahead with that and got interesting results maybe not quite as useful yeah so as I said it's not so much about niad because their eventual reasoning I think was not related to what I've talked about so far I think about Dr dashik my point is there are three or four different reasons in your letter not all of them factored ultimately into nad's reasoning but as a reader when we think about grantee transparency and integrity there's a concern that you're leaving out an awful lot of context from the letter I don't know how many reams of paper you wanted us to respond to we we cited references in our response I sought the best advice in the world from Dr barck who's an author on that paper he could have told us wait that's not a good paper to site he suggested we site it I mean we did everything we could to lay out the case NIH then had every opportunity to refuse it and say no do the alternative that's helpful and so that sort of last argument was that Dr Ralph Barrack's group took a wiiv one Spike put it on a sar's backbone and showed a loss of function not a gain of function and I think for us the question is your work was going to be with a wi one backbone and other spikes and so the wi one Spike would be the only part of wi one that was not relevant at all for your work and so I'm confused about that I think if you look at the results from that experiment because we I think we did the experiment and the results showed that there was no difference in any aspect of that in so I think I think our predictions were absolutely spoton so I don't know why this this this should be an issue now almost 10 years later well I think it's that you haven't quite answered what I was asking about in other words you pointed to experiments testing the wi one Spike right in the letter to ni yeah you were going to use the wi one backbone the only part of wi one that you were not going to use at all is the wi one Spike so I I think as a reader I'm a little bit uncertain about well I'm sorry but at this point I'm confused over one with one with 16 shc4 multiple experiments we did yeah so it's a little bit concerning that you're confused I think as well because I don't have the documents in front of me you you you've got a a question there about it look I I we were asked by NIH to explain why we believed this this experiment would not lead to any abent reactions we explained why we felt that we were then asked to produce an alternative we did NIH reviewed it and as you said that they spent some time revie this detailed proposal and then came back I think in July of 2016 and said this is not covered by the gain of function pause the experiment could move ahead I think this is a system where the oversight was there it was brought into play because we proposed that work and they saw it and said hold on let's check they checked and allowed it to move forward and for that particular experiment there was no issue at all um and for all of the experiments we did we submitted the results to an IH and they had no concerns whatsoever with those results so I think this shows the system was working maybe there are ways we could tighten it up and I fully support that and Eco fance will do everything we can to comply with any new rules you think are adequate and I think that's a good thing so I I think it's helpful to transition to the oversight we've talked a little bit about the on log rule that NAD on your grant that rule I'll just read it out it's just one sentence should any of the SARS like chimeras show evidence of enhanced growth greater than one log over the backbone you got to stop all the experiments notify your program officer you told us that you'd receive data from whv and that you and your team at Eco Health would review that to make sure everybody's in compliance with the One log rule which makes sense I think we just have a couple of questions about how that unfolded in the year three report you gave the experiment results from that year showing what the chimeric viruses did uh with one the backbone just wasn't in the report we talked about this in November I don't think it should be new to you the full length wi one wasn't included in oh this is the report but then it was in the publication yeah that almost makes it worse in other words there's no significant difference between the two graphs actually I mean I don't see why that's of any relevance really so other than the timing I mean clearly the the results they had for w one weren't ready to submit for the report but were available when they submitted the paper and we're all on the paper together I believe so that's a standard normal thing in doing science what you do with NIH over oversight when you submit a report you send them everything you've got and it's often unpublished data it might be wrong it might need to be analyzed further there may be missing parts of it so I think what you're finding is something that was missing that then was done and then put into the paper so without the backbone you can't possibly know if you are or are not in compliance with the One log rule is that right no that's not right I mean we we um we we well no one can know in advance for sure reasonable with reasonable um uh um hypothesis based on that evolutionary distance B based on everything we know about these viruses um we put forward the rationale for us thinking that this would not lead to a a striking significant difference um NIH approved it because they also believe that we did the experiment reported it back nobody came back to us and said This is highly concerning because it wasn't the results were unremarkable I'm sorry cuz that's that's not even close to what I asked so the question is without the backbone strain it is not possible to know whether you are or are not in compliance with the One log rule is that right I don't think that's correct why not well I just don't I'd have to look at the data but I don't think that's correct well it's pretty easy so the One log we'll go back over it the one log rule is you can't go one log above the backbone and so if you don't know what the backbone is how can you measure compliance well I you'd have to look at the EV the um the actual filing of what the backbone proposed backbone was I agree and you don't have it in your report so so let me ask you did that go over one log higher than the with backbone no it didn't end up doing that then why why is this an issue at all for anybody well that's easy I think it's because in year four the subsequent year it went way over one lock that that was a different virus sure it indicates however issue it indicates however that the subsequent year when you did start measuring the backbone strains performance went over a log and you've talked to us about why you think it should not you're not comparing Apples to Apples that's a completely different experiment and by the way you say it went over one log viral growth those were genome copies per gram they're widely known to be inaccurate and and not a very um ideal measure of true viral growth that should be a viral Titus so I think that's that's an unfair comparison and not relevant I can appreciate that what thanks what did the viral titer say I think you know the answer to that it would help I think folks to hear um we we never got rece viral titis in the end did you ever asked for him well if you look at the results you'll see that there's no significant difference in in the final day of that experiment by day six the um the the number of genome copies per Gramm returned to normal there would would have been no need to go back and do extra work in an experiment that was unremarkable with no significant problems just because again we are focused on the details which I know can be tedious but it was day eight that they evened out so it was I think six they were pretty much evened out statistically well let's check that's fine we can do that and so I think the situation you were in there is the other accompanying figure shows that those mice are losing more weight than the mice that are infected with that backbone strain and you've got one log of growth on days two four and six and you're telling me well it evened out on day eight so it doesn't well you know you seem somehow concerned about that we submitted that report to NIH the program officer clearly read it NH never once got back to us and said look we have concerns over that issue if they hadn't done we would have said okay let's discuss let's get the data let's conduct viral titis let's check all the raw data nobody reported anything because it wasn't remarkable those was a normal variations within a small group of mice we didn't even get to publish it because it probably wouldn't have been publishable it just wasn't that significant if you look at my conclusions in the report in the report I don't say wow we had this striking response from a group of mice that suggest this virus is highly dangerous we certainly didn't say what you read out from a paper by Dr barck um evidence that it's on the on the um cusp of a pandemic no we said and this this experiment shows that there are sometimes different responses to different viruses and different conditions that's it it wasn't remarkable it isn't a cause for concern I also want to remind the committee these are SARS KV related bat viruses they're not known to be infectious to people people they're nothing to do with covid-19 they're not related to SARS k 2 so again going back to um reporting of an experiment uh almost 10 years ago and sort of saying well we need to go back and get more information that won't be possible no one asked for it at the time we showed the results all the results we had to NH and they were unremarkable and NH clearly agreed they then um awarded the next year's funding and we continued our work yeah and I think you've helpfully said that even if that year four is viewed as going over one log it's the same experiment as year five it's one single experiment I think that's your testimony right yes that's right that's that's my understanding and I I think as the majority alluded to we're a little bit unsure about that but just some data points on it the year five report says in year five we continued with invivo experiments just as a starting point does that not sound to you like in year five they continued with experiments well this is this is um the language received from Chinese Nationals writing in English um our understanding of that was they continued analyzing from their invivo experiments which is what's in the report it's the pathology from the experiment so it's an English proficiency problem it's your misinterpretation of what they meant problem uh my interpretation is that which I think is shown by the data that they were doing the pathology on an experiment that was concluded a year ago which is normal yeah so those two experiments absolutely normal those two experiments are also measured over different time spans the figure in year four is 6 days the figure in year five is 14 days that sounds like a different experiment well we were told it isn't a different experiment it's the same experiment and unfortunately it's going to be very difficult to get any information on that now I did try and but we were told it's the same experiment now now the time difference may be easily explained by the way they set up the experiment maybe some of those mice were allowed to live longer before they were um terminated killed maybe and so that that helps I mean that's it's totally reasonable well I I I don't quite agree there but I suppose you can say maybe we asked what your Source was for it being a single experiment am I right that the source for that is the Wuhan Institute of orology Told You So the source is the lab that did the experiment that's what they told us that's the Wuhan Institute of orology and that was after the pandemic when they told you that it was when I asked when I was asked to ask by NIH was that after the pandemic oh yeah yeah okay yeah after it begun yeah is do you think there's any possibility that they might have been incentivized to be less than truthful with you in that situation I'm I'm not going to comment on people's motives that I don't know I I've had a long um relationship with the scientists in that lab I've told you about that you get to understand people and you get to know them and um you know you hear the same stories over 20 years you hear if there any discrepancies in those stories they've always been honest with us they've always been truthful there's never been any un underhand things going on um I have no reason to think that they were under pressure to lie um there was no indication of that they've not lied about other things to my knowledge um you know the these are good scientists that are trying to do their job um and the some of the best scientists in the world okay uh I'll yield some time back but I think think the broader theme throughout that is a little bit of a concern that when you discuss your work either here at the select subcommittee or with Regulators or in public facing situations it's possible perhaps that you're framing issues in the way that is most favorable to you and less so in a way that's confronting the science at any given moment and that is just a concern I've I've only told you the truth I would now like to yield to the ranking member Ruiz for a closing statement if he would like one as we conclude today's hearing I remain seriously concerned that you Dr dashak appear to be eluding questions from this Committee in an attempt to avoid consequences [Music] um it was quite evident after this last questioning um and so it is important that you and your organization be held accountable for all your actions as Federal grantees including the failure to compl comply with transparency obligations and you can say well everybody knows that's basically what you're everybody just assumes everybody knows but when you're obliged to report them and you don't that's concerning we need ensure that American taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly and I am pleased by the strong bipartisan agreement demonstrated on this point today at the same time we owe it to the American people to be transparent about what exactly we are seeing and I want to be clear that nothing produced to the select subcommittee over the past 14 months nothing in more than 425,000 pages of internal documents and 100 hours of closed door testimony substantiates claims that Federal funding to Echo Health Alliance and its work in Wuhan caused the covid-19 pandemic I have always maintained that my role as ranking member of this committee is to keep an open mind about how the pandemic started because understanding whether the novel Corona virus emerged from a lab or from nature is essential to better preventing and preparing for future Public Health threats and to better protecting the American people that doesn't negate not being transparent or you know not giving full context of your remarks at the time or you know saying that you submitted the report but yet uh it wasn't submitted um and then being locked down then not submitting it till years later is not concerning in your administrative responsibilities uh and lack of of reporting in a timely manner is um is is not concerning so as we press for appropriate accountability for Eco healths concerning conduct it is my hope that we can also dedicate our remaining time to an objective analysis of the various Pathways by which SARS kov 2 could have emerged be they zoonotic or stemming from a research related incident because the truth of the matter is that the results will remain inconclusive and our time this Congress is running short as I said in my opening statement I stand ready to work with on an objective evaluation of all these possibilities uh Mr chairman and I hope that we can do so in order to protect the health and SA safety of our constituents our community and our country this Origins could still very well be zoonotic and it could have been a lab leak but we need to in my opinion spend equal amount of time trying to figure out how we can prevent zoonotic transmissions in the right locations around our globe and what we can do to collaborate better with uh foreign countries some friendly some not in order to better contain the next emerging virus uh in the host country but I do think and at the end of the day Dr dashak you know your responses here are unsatisfactory some are understandable but some are unsatisfactory in that well that's not how I interpreted the Chinese it's not how I interpret it when it was quoted and you can say you can interpret it this way I can interpret it that way and as my colleague here my friend you're not asked to to to speak right now but as as he said it's you know you're you're explaining things to your convenience to avoid the consequences so um that you know that's concerning that is very concerning and um you know we there's been plenty of opportunity for you to submit all your data uh and evidence and now you're telling us that you can potentially have more evidence that you will give us it's also concerning so um with that you know I look forward that to have forward facing Solutions because at the end of the day um the end point here is was this a lab leak and then if it was let's improve bio safety standards and ensure that these misinterpretations don't happen and then but if it was zoonotic then let's develop a system to prevent animal transmission and since we don't know and we probably won't know because of the Chinese Communist Party withholding all their information then let's work on forward facing Solutions on both scenarios with that I yield back I thank the ranking member for his remarks I um could not agree more that we have a path forward uh we've been conducting investigation we today have found out a lot of things that have given us guidance on things that we may need to correct and I have the same concern whether something is zoonatic or whether it's uh manufactured within a lab how are we going to be prepared how can we predict it how can we prevent it how can we keep the American people safe and for that matter people around the globe but the purpose of today's hearing was to have a transparent examination of Eco Health alliances president uh Dr Peter daik given the extensive evidence of their role in gain and function research at the Wuhan Institute of rology as well as getting a better understanding of of the grant process and the oversight or lack thereof because Congress has a responsibility to ensure American taxpayer dollars are spent in accordance with the law and that rigorous oversite is applied to the entities that received these funds and as chairman of this select subcommittee I'm committed to doing just that uh we have identified serious issues with Eco health for the for the public to witness here today such as failing to disclose competing interests efforts to conceal where information originated from and other significant uh reporting failures and I I want to stress this investigation is not over and Dr Des we are not throwing the baby out with the bath water when it comes to advances in scientific research that is not the purpose everyone on here on this subcommittee supports good research this however has not been good research this subcommittee has gone spent time with the world world organization of animal health you talk about infections through uh the zoonatic community and possibly jumping to the human committee we have concerns with that we went and visited with Dr Tedros and the who we are concerned about global Health we're not trying to throw the baby out with the bath water and I agree that it's nice if you can do work in the country where the greatest risk is and we can do the surveillance there but the problem is if you're in a country that is not trustable and not accountable and non-cooperative with the who in this case we have a problem and that's not where you should be you can be near there there may be some countries near there where we can do the same research with trustable and accountable scientists that is I think an important lesson that we have learned here and there and you talk about oh this is research that's really important I I'm not saying it's not but I'll tell you there's a difference between this type of research and research that I see in my journals about bone growth or Orthopedic repairs or this is not research on a cure for cancer that benefits all people this is dangerous risky research and everyone involved with that that I know of has stated that at one point in their life or other so we cannot just blindly trust the scientists just because they're scientists they're scientists in China a country that is an adversary to the United States of America and especially when they're not forthcoming on us when working to go forward and when going this to secure a Federal Grant and fail to do the important work to satisfy the terms of the grant that's a problem as we pointed out in our report and heard today hiding behind different definitions of gain of function to deny your role and conducting dangerous gain of research at the wib will not prevent us from conducting oversight and holding people accountable you know semantics doesn't change the risks involved the semantics that we're hearing about today the different definitions of gain of function research just seems to to define the different levels of the and the SE of the risk and the severity of the results we know that Eco health and Dr daic violated the terms of the NIH Grant by failing to report the gain of function experiment it was conducting let's be clear we know this wasn't a small oversight or a clerical error this was a dangerous experiment that was conducted and not reported reported and this was not the only occurrence of Eco Health failing to properly report didn't submit the anal research report we talked about that a lot today this is not an organization that shows leadership committed to protecting taxpayer funds or conducting research in an appropriate manner as set in the terms of the grant it's this troubling pattern of behavior that we are seeing and conduct as well Eco Health made misleading statements in an effort to benefit yourself and your organization's Financial interests and reputation misleading Grant application to DARPA you downplayed the Chinese involvement in the project even though we did learn from the emails produce that your proposal your proposal did what you said you wanted to do in private which is downplay the role of China and the wi specifically Ally doctors zichi you know you you you didn't disclose your relationship with the wiv when you published the Lancet letter and you said that Lancet approved this correspondence well I'll tell you what we asked lanet to come in and sit before us they didn't neither did nature magazine science did they came in they admitted to some of the things they could maybe do better so claiming that Lance had approved of it doesn't bear much water in front of this committee right now I could go on but I think we've covered just about everything and I'm glad we have and I think we've done it in a very thorough fashion but we'll waiting for more because while we're trying to be thorough we don't feel that we have gotten a thorough response if everything was in innocent mistakes we wouldn't need to send a letter asking for more information and documents by a before on April 4th too many mistakes accountability taking far too long but here we are and we'll continue to conduct oversight and evaluate the evidence surrounding Eco health alliance's research activities before I GL close I ask Yan's consent to place the report an evaluation of the evidence surrounding Ecco Health Alliance Inc research activities into the record with that and without objection all members will have five legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit additional written questions for the witnesses which will be forwarded to the witnesses for their response with that without and if there's no further Business Without objection the select sub subcommittee stands adjourned
