Hu was researching coronavirus in the lab when he became ill with an illness that mirrored COVID-19 symptoms, according to U. S. intelligence reports. In the U. S. , according to the Wall Street Journal.
Some of Hu’s projects were funded through U. S. grants, the Journal revealed.
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Ben Hu and the other two scientists who fell in November 2019 were running at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP)
Between 2014 and 2019, $1. 4 million was awarded to the Wuhan lab through the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Institutes of Health, the Government Accountability Office said in a report last week. The grants ended in 2019.
Fox News Digital reached out to NIH and USAID.
Hu’s projects included in the investment were one to read animal viruses that can be transferred to humans and cause a pandemic and the other to read coronaviruses from bats.
Robert Kadlec, a former Department of Health and Human Services official, told the Journal that Hu and the other two scientists “published experiments on SARS-related coronaviruses conducted on unusual biosecurity parameters that may have resulted in laboratory infection. “
Along with Hu, the scientists were known as Yu Ping and Yan Zhu. All 3 researchers were alive.
Ping had written a report on coronaviruses discovered in bats before he fell ill, the Journal reported.
The researchers were first known in a Substack article last week, mentioning U. S. resources. He is referring to scientists among “patients zero. “
Substack’s article said the revelation “strengthens the case that the SARS-CoV-2 virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “
A guy from Wuhan who converted on December 8, 2019 had already been known by the Chinese government as the first official case. Hu and the other two scientists fell in November.
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Since the beginning of the pandemic, China has lacked transparency about the virus.
“The lack of knowledge dissemination is simply unforgivable,” Maria Van Kirkhove, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization, wrote in an April editorial for the journal Science. “The longer it takes to perceive the origins of the pandemic, the more difficult it becomes. “To respond to the most harmful Y becomes global. “
President Biden signed a law in March that can declassify more data about the pandemic and its origins, as soon as this week.
Neither the experts nor the U. S. government have been in the U. S. government. U. S. officials know if the pandemic originated from a lab leak.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology told the Journal it had nothing new to say. Fox News Digital for comment.
Kansas Sen. Roger Mashall, a Republican, said the revelations show the need for a closer look at U. S. subsidies.
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“Not only do we better control the scientists and the types of studies we support, but we want to reform the management of global studies grants in the United States to ensure some oversight, transparency and accountability,” he said, according to the Journal.
Fox News’ Rich Edson contributed to this report.