ALBAWABA - A laboratory in the United States is collaborating with scientists in China to produce bird flu strains more deadly than other strains as part of a joint project, despite previous suspicions that the coronavirus leaked due to similar experiments.
The project is fully funded by the United States and has been in progress for the past three years, with the information only being disclosed in the past few hours.
One of the collaborators in this project is the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. This institute had previously maintained a permanent collaboration with the notorious Wuhan lab in China, which is suspected to be behind the spread of the coronavirus.
After discoveries that American monies are going to a Chinese military lab to increase bird flu virus transmission, lawmakers are pressuring the USDA for answers. Health and national security worries accompany the shift.
A bipartisan group of 18 Congressmen has asked the USDA about its partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which oversees the Wuhan facility associated to COVID-19 hypotheses. DailyMail.com revealed a $1 million avian flu research effort.
Lawmakers warned USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack about the risks of taxpayer-funded research in a letter. They worried that the initiative could create deadly lab-engineered viral strains that could threaten national security and public health.
Due to worries regarding the COVID-19 pandemic's origins and gain-of-function research's safety, the April 2021–March 2026 partnership has drawn criticism.
The experiment, which infects ducks and geese with different viral strains to increase infectivity and assess mammalian transmission, has aroused concerns. USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Edinburgh University's Roslin Institute, a Wuhan lab partner, are the key collaborators.
The initiative has proceeded despite rising scrutiny and prohibitions on comparable research, prompting criticism and calls for responsibility from lawmakers.
The virus being manufactured now is described as "lethal," raising concerns about the potential for an accidental release and catastrophic consequences greater than those of the coronavirus pandemic.
