Senator Ernst. (file photo)
The U.S. Senate has approved a proposal from Iowa Senator Joni Ernst that would ban U.S. tax dollars from funding any of China’s state-run labs.
That would including the Wuhan Institute where new reports suggest researchers were seriously ill before the first cases of Covid-19 were reported in 2019.
During remarks on the Senate floor, Ernst said China continues to obstruct international efforts to discover Covid-19’s origins, “refusing to allow independent scientists to review the database of coronaviruses that were being studied in the Wuhan Institute.”
The ban on sending federal funding to China’s research laboratories is now included in a bipartisan bill designed to address China’s global ambitions. Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak, said “not another dime” of U.S. tax dollars should support research in the communist country.
“Providing additional US funds to subsidize any state-run lab in China, especially the Wuhan Institute of Virology, goes against the very purpose of the underlying bill, which to support more research in the U.S. to better compete with China.”
Ernst’s amendment passed on a voice vote late yesterday as senators considered several amendments offered by Republicans and Democrats.