3 ms·
A lot of this "Funding" people have been politicizing, isn't major funding. It's nominal funding, which guarantees access to the final products of that research
by futhey 4y ago
A lot of this "Funding" people have been politicizing, isn't major funding. It's nominal funding, which guarantees access to the final products of that research.
In general, it's a good policy to allow the government to fund 1% of a project, here and there, in hopes of benefiting equally from the research.
And, the WIV funding that's been politicized so heavily, was specifically for better understanding SARS after the outbreak in 2004. Which, in hindsight, was a pretty good idea. Turns out, SARS was something we'd have to deal with in the future.
Would have been pretty difficult to pursue this research without working with any scientists in China.
The total was $600k across all projects to WIV, all-time, and this was due to outsourcing by EcoHealth.
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/ https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain...
But really, just put competent subject-matter experts in charge of the NIH and CDC, and let them do their jobs.
- netsharc 4y agoDuring the whole "The Pentagon is funding bio-weapons research in Ukraine!" ramblings (from the Russian propaganda system being parroted by MAGA folks) it was never really explained by the debunkers that the funding was to make sure allied countries can adequately detect pandemics and other natural biological threats to humans and livestock. The money was coming from the Pentagon because ensuring that American humans and livestock don't catch weird diseases also counts as defense...
- xyzzy123 4y agoI do agree with you that the draft bill is silly and would be counterproductive. However it would be more correct to say that WIV received _at least_ 600k from EHA but the total is unknown. The 600k came out of $3.7M NIH funding, but the fact check article you cited doesn't mention that EHA received > $100M in grants from other parts of government (biggest being dod & state) and I don't believe it's publicly known where that money might have gone exactly. Agree that perspective is important, the total dollar amounts discussed are equivalent to a big C round for 1 startup. See: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9652287/The-Pentagon-funneled-39million-charity-funded-Wuhan-lab.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9652287/The-Pentago... (yes, it's the daily mail but it looks like they searched the grant databases a bit more carefully).