NIH. Didn't properly track group studying coronavirus, report says

An internal federal watchdog says the health agency failed to adequately oversee EcoHealth Alliance, which received $8 million grant dollars.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The National Institutes of Health made significant errors in its oversight of grants to a nonprofit group that has been criticized by congressional Republicans for its research collaborations in China, an internal federal oversight agency said Wednesday. .

The findings, presented in a 64-page report outlining missed deadlines, confusing protocols and mis-spent funds, heightened concerns about the government's system to oversee research on potentially dangerous pathogens.

The report comes as Washington shifts its focus to research on pathogens that many virologists consider essential to defend against health threats, but which critics fear poses its own dangers.

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A government advisory group is meeting on Friday to discuss the overhaul of these monitoring rules. The Biden administration has made reducing the risk of lab accidents a major part of its pandemic preparedness strategy. And congressional Republicans are planning hearings on virus research.

Federal health officials' relationship with the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance makes under intense scrutiny from proponents of stricter lab security due to the group's collaboration on coronavirus research with scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is located in the city where the Covid-19 pandemic began.

There is no evidence linking the Wuhan lab or its work with EcoHealth to the start of the pandemic. Federal health officials showed that the viruses in EcoHealth's experiments were not closely related to the one causing the pandemic, and researchers identified several naturally occurring bat viruses that are much more similar to the one that killed millions around the world.

The surveillance report, compiled by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and of Human Services, did not say whether the EcoHealth experiments posed a risk or represented what are known as gain-of-function studies, in which viruses are given new abilities. But he criticized the N.I.H. for not following the work of EcoHealth.

"N.I.H. failed to adequately monitor EcoHealth grant awards in accordance with its policies and procedures and other federal requirements,” the report states. The watchdog chided the N.I.H. for, among other things, not demanding a progress report that was two years overdue and which health officials said later contained evidence of viral growth in experiments that were supposed to have been reported immediately. /p>

"This is a damning indictment of the N.I.H.", said Lawrence O. Gostin, public health law expert at Georgetown University, who has informally advised the White House on health safety issues.

"This report is truly the first truly independent, nonpartisan review of N.I.H. research procedures on enhanced pathogens,” he said, “and it shows serious errors in adhering to the N.I.H.’s own rules and also in diligent monitoring and surveillance that the public would expect.”

< p class="css -at9mc1 evys1bk0">The report covered three N.I.H . grants to EcoHealth between 2014 and 2021, totaling approximately $8 million. In 2016 and 2018, according to the report, health officials imposed additional safeguards on EcoHealth research, requiring the group to notify them if the coronaviruses generated in its experiments showed signs...