Trump administration cuts funding for coronavirus researcher, jeopardizing possible COVID-19 cure
An American scientist who collaborates with the Wuhan Institute of Virology had his grant terminated in the wake of unsubstantiated claims that COVID-19 is either manmade or leaked out of a Chinese government lab.
Peter Daszak is a scientist whose work is helping in the search for a COVID-19 cure. So why did the president just cancel Daszak's funding? It's the kind of politics which might seem ill-advised in a health crisis. President Trump is blaming China's government for the pandemic. The outbreak was first detected in the city of Wuhan. The administration has said, at times, the virus is man-made or that, if it's natural, it must have leaked out of a Chinese government lab. Both the White House and the Chinese Communist Party have been less than honest. And so, in China, and the U.S., the work of scientists like Peter Daszak is being undercut by pandemic politics.
Peter Daszak is a British-born American Ph.D. who's spent a career discovering dangerous viruses in wildlife, especially bats.
In 2003, in Malaysia, he warned 60 Minutes a pandemic was coming.
Peter Daszak in 2003 interview: What worries me the most is that we are going to miss the next emerging disease, that we're suddenly going to find a SARS virus that moves from one part of the planet to another, wiping out people as it moves along.
In the 17 years since that prophecy, Peter Daszak became president of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance.
Peter Daszak: We're a nonprofit research organization that focuses on understanding where the pandemics come from, what's the risk of future pandemics and can we get in between this pandemic and the next one and disrupt it and stop it.
In China, EcoHealth has worked for 15 years with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Together they've catalogued hundreds of bat viruses, research that is critical right now.
Peter Daszak: The breakthrough drug, Remdesivir, that seems to have some impact on COVID-19 was actually tested against the viruses we discovered under our NIH research funding.
Scott Pelley: And so that testing would not have been possible--
Peter Daszak: No, it would not.
Scott Pelley: --if it hadn't been for the work that you did with the NIH grant?
Peter Daszak: Correct.
But his funding from the NIH, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, was killed, two weeks ago, by a political disinformation campaign targeting China's Wuhan Institute.
On April 14, Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz claimed China's Wuhan Institute had, quote, "birthed a monster." Gaetz is a vigorous defender of the president. He's been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegedly threatening a witness against Mr. Trump and he led a protest to delay impeachment testimony. ...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-admin...ure-60-minutes/
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