by WorldTribune Staff, May 6, 2025 Real World News
President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order that ends all federal funding for “dangerous” gain-of-function virus research.
The order “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 said.
The president’s order is also meant to protect Americans from incidents “such as those that likely caused COVID-19 and the 1977 Russian flu.”
The Trump Administration has reaffirmed the belief that Covid likely originated from a lab leak at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, where gain-of-function research was being conducted.
Last month, the White House replaced the government’s COVID-19 website with a new portal focused on the “True Origins of COVID-19.” The site argues the virus has features not found in nature and draws ties between Covid and the Wuhan lab.
U.S. research agencies are instructed under Trump’s order to identify and halt any biological research that could jeopardize public health or national security, such as causing another pandemic.
The order cited research done in countries of concern such as China or any other country where there is not “adequate oversight to ensure that the countries are compliant with United States oversight standards and policies.”
The White House emphasized the policy will not interfere with legitimate biological research aimed at strengthening U.S. biosecurity and health research.
“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 in a fact sheet alongside the order. “Researchers have not acknowledged the legitimate potential for societal harms that this kind of research poses.”
“In all of the history of Gain-of-Function research, we cannot point to a single good thing that has come of it,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who appeared alongside Trump at the signing.
Trump signs an executive order to end federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function research
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 5, 2025
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New Trump executive order targets ‘dangerous gain of function research’ added by Editor Two on May 6, 2025
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