EXCLUSIVE: Leaked Details of Trump’s Plan to Control Dangerous Virus Research
Scientists who fail to disclose risky research can be barred from federal programs as can their universities.
4 minute read
A few days back I took several calls from officials working on President Trump’s policy to limit and track dangerous, gain-of-function pathogen research, the very studies that likely created the COVID virus, which most American believe leaked from a Wuhan lab. Trump signed an Executive Order on May 5 to stop risky gain-of-function scientific studies, leading to controversy and claims by media outlets politically aligned with virologists and the Democratic Party that it will harm science.
“Executive order on gain-of-function experiments could chill research on infectious diseases,” reported Science Magazine.
“Trump freezes ‘gain of function’ pathogen research ― threatening all US virology,” reported Nature Magazine.
In one of the more bizarre, confusing articles to splash across social media, the Daily Caller falsely reported that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is somehow subverting the White House policy process, and that an NIH contractor is somehow creating a potential virus bioweapon, even though he doesn’t work in a lab.
Yes. It’s that nutty out there, people. You’ve been warned.
Last Wednesday, senior officials from several dozen agencies assembled at the White House to review the plan, and the State Department “blew up the meeting”, I was told by several people. For some of the senior officials who showed up, it was likely their first time reviewing the policy which had been handled by lower-level employees in prior meetings. This might have led to the problems at the Wednesday meeting.
As I previously reported, employees from HHS, FDA, USDA, CDC, DOW, State Department, DNI, CIA, FBI, and branches of the military are among the dozens of officials putting the new policy together. Two employees at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), I am told, are actually holding the pen to write the strategy.
The White House was expected to roll out the rules earlier this month, but the government shut down and several employee problems caused unexpected delays. Dr. Gerald Parker, for example, was considered a key appointment for the White House, but resigned this summer to deal with some personal health issues.
However, I have learned that White House OSTP has decided Trump’s policy will take a “risk-based” approach to determine whether a particular pathogen study will be green lighted. Entities responsible will be penalized if they fail to heed the system.
Four entities will provide multiple checks in the process:
Scientist proposing the study;
Institution where the scientist works;
Funding agency (NIH, DOW, USDA, State Department, etc.);
Independent Review Board (this does not yet exist and will scrutinize all studies across the government).
Each entity will have different responsibilities and different penalties if they evade the new policy. For example, a researcher who submits a virus study to an agency for funding without running it through the system may be debarred from federal participation if one of the entities later finds the study is dangerous. That researcher’s institution could also be debarred as well, for not ensuring the scientist followed the new process.
Submitting research proposals to the new Independent Review Board, however, will provide a safe harbor, protecting both scientist and institutions. Program officers at agencies funding research—NIH, State Department, DOW, USDA, for example—will also be forced to evaluate the studies they fund to ensure they follow the rules.
It remains unclear what penalties might befall federal employees who try to evade the rules, and those details will likely be worked out by each separate agency. The Department of Energy, for example, funds millions of dollars in pathogen research each year.
The Independent Review Board will review science study proposals from across the federal government, and might require a new charter and congressional action. The White House is expected to release the final plan in January or February.
NOTE TO READERS: While nobody will reveal who exactly is working on this new policy, an intelligence official, who wishes to remain anonymous, sent me several emails from the last major update to gain-of-function virus research policy in 2017. When White House National Security Council Advisor Hillary Carter emailed the research policy’s final version, she copied in those who had participated in the process.
The list of government employees stretches on for four pages, which you can view here.
Maybe a naive question, but why is the Department of Energy involved in pathogen research? Might part of the governments problem (and ours) be that too many agencies have their hands in this?