President Trump ended federal funding for gain-of-function research in China, Iran and other countries that have “insufficient research oversight.”
Gain-of-function research is medical research that alters viruses or other microorganisms to make them more infectious. That type of work was done at the lab in Wuhan, China.
“It’s a big deal,” Mr. Trump said Monday when signing the order in the Oval Office. “Could’ve been that we wouldn’t have had the problem we had if we had this done earlier.”
Mr. Trump has long argued that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China, where the virus was first discovered in 2019. Democrats and the news media criticized the lab leak idea during the pandemic and blamed Mr. Trump for fueling anti-Asian hate crimes.
However, the Wuhan lab leak theory later gained credence in the global scientific community. China steadfastly denies its lab was the source of the pandemic.
“There’s no laboratory that does this right. There’s no laboratory that’s immune from leaks,” said Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “This is going to prevent these kinds of inadvertent leaks from happening in the future and endangering humanity.”
The president’s order ended all current and future federal funding of the “dangerous” research and allows other agencies to stop funding other biological research that could pose a threat or cause another pandemic, such as those that “likely caused COVID-19 and the 1977 Russian flu.”
The White House said Mr. Trump’s order will “improve the safety and security of biological research in the United States and around the world.”
“These measures will drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
The White House also said the funding ban will not impede productive biological research to protect the U.S. from biological threats.
“For decades, policies overseeing gain-of-function research on pathogens, toxins, and potential pathogens have lacked adequate enforcement, transparency, and top-down oversight,” the White House said. “Researchers have not acknowledged the legitimate potential for societal harms that this kind of research poses.”
The White House launched a webpage last month that outlines evidence that COVID-19 leaked from a lab. It also rails against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Democrats who rejected that the virus came from the Wuhan lab.
“A lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely the origin of COVID-19,” the web page says. “Current government mechanisms for overseeing this dangerous gain-of-function research are incomplete, severely convoluted, and lack global applicability.”
A report from the House Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic said that the virus research group EcoHealth Alliance was a part of the gain-of-function research in China using federal funds, though the group denies it.
Mr. Trump on Monday also took steps to boost pharmaceutical manufacturing in the U.S. by streamlining the process for drugmakers to build new domestic factories.
He ordered the Food and Drug Administration to conduct more inspections of new manufacturing sites, the agency’s commissioner, Marty Markary, told reporters. He said the FDA will also ramp up inspections of foreign drug facilities, conducting “surprise” visits overseas, transitioning from announced visits.
“We had this crazy system in the United States where American pharma manufacturers … are put through the wringer with inspections, and the foreign sites get it a lot easier with scheduled visits, while we have surprise visits,” Mr. Markary said.
Mr. Trump also signed a proclamation declaring May as National Mental Health Month. He teased a “big announcement” next week on drug costs.
In other executive action, the president enabled “a significant” number of new U.S. attorneys to start their jobs by signing an order approving 39 senior officials who had been confirmed by the Senate. In February, Mr. Trump ordered the Justice Department to fire any remaining U.S. attorneys who were holdovers from the Biden administration.
The dismissal of a previous administration’s U.S. attorneys is typical after a new president takes over. However, most presidents ask the U.S. attorneys for their resignation rather than through a mass firing, which Mr. Trump had carried out.
U.S. attorneys are the chief federal law enforcement officials in their state or jurisdiction.
