Sen. Marshall Leads Inquiry into State Department Panel with EcoHealth Alliance

December 8 Panel was Facilitated by Global Health Council

(Washington, D.C., December 22, 2022) – U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. is leading a new inquiry into the U.S. Department of State’s participation in a recent panel discussion that pushed “important new science” in support of the theory that COVID-19 was a naturally forming pandemic. The panel’s description is in direct contradiction with both the U.S. Intelligence Community’s and World Health Organization’s assessments that a lab leak is a possible source of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The State Department’s Jim Levy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Space, Science, and Health and Director for the Office of International Health and Biodefense, joined the December 8 “Preventing Pandemics at the Source” panel, as part of the Global Health Council’s 2022 Symposium. Also featured on the panel was Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Vice President for Science and Outreach for EcoHealth Alliance.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Senator Marshall, along with U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley (IA) and Marco Rubio (FL), outline the problematic nature with Mr. Levy’s participation in an event that endorses the natural origin theory for COVID-19, as well as publicly appearing with EcoHealth Alliance, which has connections to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and refuses to cooperate with U.S. Government investigations in the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins. The Senators wrote in part,

“We write with concern that a U.S. State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary partnered with an executive from the non-profit organization EcoHealth Alliance (EcoHealth) to discuss “important new science” that “strongly supports zoonotic origins for COVID-19… We are unaware of Congressional briefings by the State Department about this new science that apparently strongly supports the COVID-19 zoonotic origins hypothesis…EcoHealth was in optimal position to assist with research into the COVID-19 origins due to its pre-pandemic work in Wuhan, China, but instead of contributing to the efforts, it obstructed the U.S. Government’s investigation through its refusal to provide documents, statements, research materials and unpublished bat coronavirus specimen data… The State Department must explain its participation in this event when the evidence uncovered so far, including the State Department Fact Sheet, weighs in favor of a laboratory origin of COVID-19. We seek an explanation about the State Department’s senior official’s participation in this joint panel and importantly, of this new science that has not publicly been sanctioned by any government agency…”

The Senators requested an answer to their letter by January 5, 2023. You may click HERE to read their full letter to Secretary Blinken.

Background:

Last month, Senator Marshall and four of his Senator Republican colleagues wrote a letter to the White House demanding that the federal government implement a government-wide ban on all ongoing and new viral Gain-of-Function (GoF) and Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) studies in the life sciences involving all enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential (ePPP) due to the current lack of research oversight, clear guidelines, and potential risks of outbreaks from laboratory accidents. You may click HERE to read the letter to Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Director for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

In October 2022, Republicans on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) released a report confirming the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic resulted from a research-related incident. Senator Marshall issued a statement applauding the committee’s work and pledging to continue investigating the coronavirus’s origins following the release of the report.

One year ago, Senator Marshall led a group of colleagues in introducing the Viral Gain of Function Research Moratorium Act to place a moratorium on all federal research grants to universities and other organizations conducting gain-of-function research and risky research on potential pandemic pathogens. This legislation was in response to the congressional inquiries and various media investigations revealing national security issues including federal agencies authorizing dangerous research with certain foreign entities that may have contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Having been the first member of Congress to sound the alarm on the House floor about the spread of COVID-19 and later serving on the frontlines as a volunteer treating patients in Wyandotte County and Seward County, Senator Marshall has been leading the effort in the U.S. Senate to get to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19.

Senator Marshall led a group of Senators on a letter to Samantha Power, Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), demanding that her agency suspend its taxpayer-funded financial awards to EcoHealth Alliance (EcoHealth), a U.S. nonprofit organization led by Peter Daszak. USAID’s unwillingness to cooperate with congressional requests for information regarding its funding of organizations like EcoHealth has previously led Senator Marshall to delay Senate consideration of USAID nominees from confirmation, to which USAID responded by providing some records. The effort is ongoing. The Senators’ letter outlines EcoHealth’s history of noncompliance with federal grant requirements, as well as the organization’s dishonesty about its use of federal grants to fund research at foreign labs like the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China.

Senator Marshall asked questions during a U.S. Senate hearing on the federal government’s involvement with GoF research projects in China. At the same hearing, Senator Marshall connected Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to efforts to push GoF research out of the United States and into China through EcoHealth Alliance. You may click HERE or on the image below to watch Senator Marshall’s full line of questioning during the hearing.

Video was released of Hudson Institute Senior Fellow David Asher, who led the State Department’s COVID-19 origins investigation for the Trump Administration, interviewing Senator Marshall about his leadership in the investigation into the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins and the implications of future gain-of-function research to avoid these types of leaks from reoccurring. Nearly three years after COVID-19’s emergence the world still lacks basic answers on the pandemic’s origins; the Chinese cover up of its rapidly emerging spread; how the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sought to change key scientists’ opinions about a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology; and why there is a lack accountability, transparency, and responsibility among scientists and public health officials in the United States and around the world. You may click HERE or on the image below to watch the interview.

Senator Marshall and U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (OH) released a video detailing Dr. Tony Fauci’s involvement with the COVID-19 China cover up. The video comes on the heels of Dr. Fauci refusing to stop using U.S. taxpayer dollars to award China grants following a question by Senator Marshall at a committee hearing. Senator Marshall and Representative Jordan have been leading the fight to uncover the origins of COVID-19. You may click HERE or on the image below to watch Senator Marshall and Representative Jordan’s video.

At a hearing when Senator Marshall asked Dr. Fauci if he would stop using U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund Chinese Communist Party research projects – such as EcoHealth Alliance’s activities at the Wuhan Institute of Virology – Dr. Fauci admitted his agency does not have any plans to do so. You may click HERE or on the image below to watch Senator Marshall’s full exchange with Dr. Fauci.

In February 2022, Senator Marshall penned an op-ed for the Washington Examiner about the nearly ten billion dollars in funding controlled by Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins and how those dollars appear to have influenced scientists worldwide on their opinion of COVID origins.

Upon joining the U.S. Senate in 2021, Senator Marshall released a multi-step path forward on getting to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19 and holding China accountable for its actions surrounding the earliest days of the outbreak. Since then, he has introduced the Chinese Communist Party Accountability Act to place sanctions on the top two Chinese health officials with early ties to the COVID-19 outbreak who obfuscated actionable information; the Viral Gain of Function Research Moratorium Act to place a moratorium on all federal research grants to universities and other organizations conducting gain-of-function research and risky research on potential pandemic pathogens; and the National BioSecurity Improvement Act to ensure federally-funded research involving potentially dangerous pathogens does not compromise national security. You may click HERE or on the image below to read the Senator’s multi-step path forward.

The Senator introduced a resolution calling for a bipartisan Select Committee to investigate the origins of COVID-19. The Senate passed a bipartisan amendment offered by Senator Marshall and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) calling for a transparent investigation into the COVID-19 outbreak mandated by the World Health Assembly during its current session, which ends on Monday. Additionally, if China continues on its path of cover-up and obfuscation, the Marshall-Gillibrand Amendment demands a full, transparent investigation to include the U.S. and our allies and partners around the world. In fact, Senators Marshall and Gillibrand held the first joint bipartisan Senate briefing on the origins of COVID-19 bringing together healthcare, national security, medical, and academic experts. In November 2021, Senators Marshall and Gillibrand joined forces with Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to introduce bipartisan legislation to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate COVID-19 origins and identify lessons learned regarding U.S. preparedness, response, and recovery to improve our ability to respond to future outbreaks. Senators Marshall and Gillibrand were on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss the legislation, which you may watch by clicking HERE or on the image below. In the following months, he secured this 9/11 Style COVID task force in the Senate HELP Committee’s bipartisan PREVENT Pandemics Act.

Senator Marshall was the first U.S. Senator to demand answers from the DOD and HHS on possible COVID-19 infections of U.S. Army troops who participated in the 2019 World Military Games that took place in Wuhan, China from October 18-28, 2019.

In September 2021, Senator Marshall released a video walkthrough of a 3D timeline of the origins of COVID-19. You may click HERE or on the image below to watch the video.

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