Peter Daszak is a high-profile virologist with close ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That relationship landed him in front of Congress this week.
Dr. Peter Daszak has spent his career researching some of the most dangerous viruses in the world. As president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York–based nonprofit, he and his colleagues have traveled the globe studying everything from Ebola to Nipah to the coronaviruses that linger in the bodies of bats. He is a high-profile emissary of the scientific community, especially since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic when he was a go-to expert whose views were sought out by media, government and more. But Daszak’s work, and especially his long-running partnership with a virology lab in Wuhan, China, has lately landed him in front of less friendly audiences as questions about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 continue to roil Washington.
On Wednesday, a bipartisan panel of lawmakers peppered the embattled scientist with questions during a three-hour hearing. The hearing was convened by the Republican-led Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which is probing the origin of Covid-19 as well as the federal government’s response to it. The committee called in Daszak to question him about his organization’s long-standing ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, a leading center of coronavirus research in the city where the pandemic first emerged. Throughout the hearing, Democrats and Republicans blasted what they asserted was Daszak’s lack of transparency concerning his work with WIV and they questioned the nature of the research that his organization pursued in collaboration with the Chinese institute. Both parties also raised the prospect that EcoHealth Alliance could be barred from future federal funding.
Daszak vehemently defended his organization and himself throughout the proceedings.
“The public nature of our work and our long-standing collaborations with Chinese scientists made us a target for speculation about the origins of Covid-19, beginning in early 2020, and continuing to this day,” he stated in testimony to the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which is probing the origin of Covid-19. “Misinformation about our research began to circulate widely through social media and the press, often spread by people with little knowledge or understanding of the science underlying our research.”
The question of the pandemic’s origin is still an open one. Many high-profile scientists, including Daszak, contend that the pandemic emerged as the result of a zoonotic spillover, likely via the wildlife trade. Five US intelligence agencies, including the National Intelligence Council, also assess that the pandemic has a natural origin. Numerous others, including some scientists and political leaders, believe Covid-19 emerged as the result of a laboratory escape in Wuhan, China, where research involving the collection and manipulation of coronaviruses was occurring in the years before the pandemic began. Both the FBI and the Department of Energy likewise assess that the pandemic most likely originated via a laboratory-associated incident. Still other prominent scientists, politicians, as well as the CIA, believe there is not enough reliable information to make a determination.
Daszak’s organization has been sucked into this political storm primarily due to its work with the WIV. Though a civilian institution, WIV personnel also do work with the People’s Liberation Army of China, according to a 2023 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Between 2014 and 2021, EcoHealth Alliance received more than $7.9 million in federal grant dollars from the National Institutes of Health, a portion of which it sent to WIV as part of a project to collect and conduct experiments on bat coronaviruses in order to