Controversial Group That Brought Funding To Wuhan Lab Part Of New York's Pandemic Response Team

New York City's new Pandemic Response Institute has just welcomed EcoHealth Alliance to the fold. EcoHealth Alliance, which is led by British zoologist and expert on disease ecology Peter Daszak, has long been linked to the coronavirus that caused the COVID pandemic for its ties to the Wuhan lab where the virus is believed to have escaped in a leak or accident.

Now, EcoHealth Alliance has been appointed by New York City officials to join its newly established Pandemic Response Institute, the National Pulse reported. The appointment was revealed in September when Columbia University published a press release on it. This comes after EcoHealth through Daszak "[orchestrated] a cover-up of the role the Wuhan Institute of Virology played in the origins of COVID-19."

Despite Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance's questionable partnerships with China's Wuhan Institute of Virology through the National Institutes of Health, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) included the nonprofit research organization into its "consortium of academic, community, government, and corporate partners [that] will launch and operate New York City's first Pandemic Response Institute."

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio remarked, "The Pandemic Response Institute, operated by Columbia University with key partner CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy, will play a critical role in preparing for future pandemics, and promoting equity in public health."

As part of the Pandemic Response Institute, EcoHealth Alliance will be advising New York City on the "entire lifecycle of emergency preparedness" and address social issues like "interven[ing] on the social determinants of health to address racial disparities, promote equity, and improve access to essential care and services in most-affected communities."

In September, Daszak was the recipient of a letter penned by a group of 10 scientists, historians, and other academics from around the world that dubbed themselves the "Paris group," which called for his removal as president of EcoHealth Alliance. The coalition called for his removal, alleging that Daszak had "withheld critical information and misled public opinion by expressing falsehoods," Science the Wire reported.

A leaked grant proposal and documents obtained from Freedom of Information Act requests have raised questions about EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak's transparency and their conflict of interest amidst the scramble to investigate the truth about where the coronavirus truly originated from.

Geopolitical commentator Jamie Metzl, who is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, criticized Daszak, saying that the EcoHealth Alliance president "leads this propaganda campaign, vilifying people who ask questions" that contradict a view claiming that COVID was passed on to humans from wildlife.

Moreover, it was not only Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance who was involved in coronavirus research in China. In November, Newsweek reported how the NIH "fought for more than a year to keep details about the EcoHealth grant under wraps." But this year, up to 528 pages of proposals, conditions, emails, and progress reports showed that EcoHealth Alliance had funded experiments at the Wuhan lab that were "considerably riskier than the ones previously disclosed."

When COVID became a global pandemic early in 2020, "Daszak launched his preemptive campaign to prevent anyone from looking behind the curtain. And EcoHealth and the NIH tried hard to keep the details of their collaboration private."