Executive Order Restricts Funding on Pathogen Research
WASHINGTON — An executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Monday would restrict federal funding for so-called “gain-of-function” research on pathogens and other toxins.
The research has long been controversial among scientists who fear that pathogens made more dangerous in a lab setting could get out and cause a pandemic.
However, proponents of such research argue it enables scientists to better predict which mutations might more readily spread to people or be more dangerous.
All federal funding for such research was stopped in 2014, but the ban was lifted just three years later by the first Trump administration.
At the time, the White House believed it was better to put stronger guardrails in place — including more stringent reviews of potentially dangerous research — than to cut off money entirely.
The COVID pandemic has led to a reconsideration of that thinking.
Trump and others have long maintained that “gain-of-function” research led to the creation of the COVID virus in a lab in Wuhan, China.
“I said that from Day 1,” Trump said Monday, as he signed the executive order at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
“A scientist walked outside to have lunch with a girlfriend or was together with a lot of people,” he said.
A number of federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation agree with the president’s explanation of COVID’s origins.
But not everyone agrees with that assessment.
During and since the pandemic a number of studies have suggested the source of the virus was a wild mammal who picked up a bat coronavirus and was subsequently sold at an open air food market in Wuhan.
The Biden administration did take steps to increase federal oversight over potentially dangerous “gain-of-function” research, but many complained the tightened scrutiny did not go far enough.
On Monday, Trump sided with the critics, directing the Office of Science and Technology Policy to revise or replace the policy with new regulations.
The executive order signed by the president also calls for the agency to develop a strategy to oversee potentially dangerous research carried out without the support of federal funding within the borders of the United States.
Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue
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