Thread by @R_H_Ebright

"NIH allowed a US nonprofit it funds to police its own..research on bat coronaviruses in China, raising new concerns about insufficient oversight at the agency."

NIH officials worked with EcoHealth Alliance to evade restrictions on coronavirus experiments interc.pt/3wdPCcz

"Detailed notes on NIH communications obtained by The Intercept show that beginning..May 2016, agency staff had an unusual exchange with Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliance, about experiments.. his group was planning to conduct on coronaviruses under an NIH grant"

"The plans triggered concerns at NIH. Two staff members—grants management specialist, and..program officer handling coronavirus research—wrote to EcoHealth..to say..experiments..appear to involve research covered under the pause'" referring to a..moratorium on..gain-of-function"

"[T]he correspondence..makes clear that at least some at the agency were concerned that EcoHealth Alliance’s proposed experiments met the criteria for gain-of-function research of concern as early as 2016."

"NIH..appeared intent on enforcing..pause. The..administrators requested additional information from EcoHealth..within 15 days..They also asked..group to provide..description of changes that would allow..researchers to pursue..aims without conducting..dangerous experiments."

"But what happened next sets off alarm bells for biosafety advocates: Agency staff adopted language that EcoHealth Alliance crafted to govern its own work"

Jesse Bloom: "The discussions reveal that neither party is taking the risks..seriously..MERS-CoV..killed hundreds..and is thought to pose..pandemic risk, so it’s difficult to see how chimeras of MERS-CoV with other high risk..viruses shouldn’t also be considered a pandemic risk."

Bloom: "The entire rationale of EcoHealth’s grant..on SARS-related CoVs is that viruses with spikes..diverged from SARS-CoV..pose..pandemic risk..Given that this is the entire rationale.., how can they..argue these viruses should not be regulated as potential pandemic pathogens?"

Bloom: "Given the importance and interest in this topic, it’s important for the NIH to be fully transparent about the research they support and how they make crucial decisions about the regulation of research on potential pandemic pathogens."

Simon Wain-Hobson: "It’s absolutely outrageous..The NIH is bending over backward to help people it’s funded. It isn’t clear that the NIH is protecting the U.S. taxpayer."

"Daszak gave his group a way out. If the recombinant viruses grew more quickly than the original viruses on which they were based, he suggested, EcoHealth Alliance and its collaborators would immediately stop its research and inform their NIAID program officer."

"Specifically, he suggested a threshold beyond which his researchers would not go: If the novel SARS or MERS chimeras showed evidence of enhanced virus growth greater than 1 log (or 10 times) over the original viruses..the scientist would immediately stop..and inform..NIAID"

"In..July 7 letter to EcoHealth.., NIH..accepted Daszak’s proposed rule..The language..NIH..inserted..was.. strikingly similar to what Daszak proposed: 'Should..chimeras generated under this grant show evidence of enhanced virus growth greater than 1 log..stop all experiments'"

"But when the scientists conducted the experiments in 2018, one of the chimeric viruses grew at a rate that produced a viral load of log 4 — or 10,000 times — greater than the parent virus. Even so, the work was allowed to proceed."

"Despite the careful wording meant to assure the agency that the research would be immediately halted if it enhanced the viruses’ pathogenicity or transmissibility, EcoHealth violated its own rule and did not immediately report the concerning results to NIH"

"Daszak..[risibly] argued..that the viral growth,,in the experiment did not correspond to the viral growth in the rule ..'The experiment we reported to NIH..shows genome copies per gram not viral titer.'"

"Yet virologists contacted by The Intercept dismissed..the distinction"

"[T]he fact that the NIH allowed EcoHealth Alliance to write its own rules is further evidence of the NIH’s regulatory failure"

Ebright: "This is like a teacher giving you the opportunity to write your own homework problem and grade your own homework when you turn it in. Then you decide the teacher is so lenient, there’s no need to hand it in,..The oversight process clearly failed."

Bloom: "In addition to the legal..questions of whether EcoHealth and NIH were adhering to..guidelines..we urgently need a broader discussion about whether it’s a good idea to be making novel chimeras of coronaviruses..universally acknowledged to pose..pandemic risk to humans.”