Trump’s NIH plows ahead with bat lab to fuel virus research in U.S.

The Trump administration is moving to wind down many taxpayer-funded animal experiments, but a controversial bat virus lab in Colorado is still powering forward with a new infusion of millions of dollars.

The lab is being built at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and it is intended to host a breeding colony for bats that can be used for virus research here in the U.S. — including a who’s who of scary viruses such as Ebola, Nipah and coronaviruses.

The lab said it will do some testing itself, as well as provide bats for other domestic labs.

Little more than a year ago, the project was imperiled after its bat supplier, EcoHealth Alliance, was banned from government contracts as punishment for its role in funding the Wuhan lab federal agencies believe to have been the cause of the coronavirus pandemic.

But the National Institutes of Health under President Trump just delivered another $2.2 million to the bat lab on Sept. 15. The money will promote “infection studies” of bats using the Nipah virus, the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the center of the pandemic, and BANAL-52 and BANAL-236, two coronavirus variants closely tied to the pandemic virus.

The lab touted the upside of the research.

“The establishment of this resource will lead to a better understanding of how bats host highly pathogenic viruses without disease and may shed light on events that increase spillover risks to humans,” the lab said in its funding justification. “In turn, this information could lead to development of mitigation strategies to prevent future virus spillover and uncover new strategies for therapeutic treatment of coronavirus and Nipah virus diseases.”

Others, though, were shocked to see the money flowing.

“When I disbarred EcoHealth from receiving taxpayer funds for sketchy research in China, that was not an invitation for the NIH to conduct the same shady experiments in our own backyard,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who’s been active on the issue.

“It’s like a bad sequel,” she told The Washington Times. “Same plot. Same cast of characters, but a bigger budget! We cannot repeat the mistakes of COVID. I will be working to stop these mad scientists and their batty experiments once and for all.”

NIH approved the money even though the new director, Jay Bhattacharya, was critical of the idea of the lab just a year ago.

“I don’t understand how do you prevent a pandemic with this research,” he said in a Twitter Spaces appearance with members of the community in Fort Collins and the White Coat Waste Project, which was among the first to draw attention to U.S. government funding for the Wuhan lab.

“This is the kind of research that has the potential to impact your community, but not just your community, every community in the world,” he said at the time.

He was particularly critical of the lack of transparency for those in the Fort Collins Community.

“Why is it that only a small group of people gets to decide what risks the entire world gets to take?” he said.

Given those comments, Justin Goodman, senior vice president at White Coat Waste, said it was striking to see NIH, now under Dr. Bhattacharya, dole out new money.

“When he became NIH Director, we were counting on him to shut it down — but instead, his agency is forking over millions more in taxpayer dollars for the lab’s risky and wasteful bat experiments with SARS, Ebola, and other deadly bioagents,” Mr. Goodman said. “It’s a recipe for disaster. Taxpayers need another Fauci bat virus lab on U.S. soil like they need a hole in the head.”

CSU did not respond to repeated inquiries about the status of the bat lab and the new infusion of money.

But it’s clearly aware of the concerns.

Its web page tackles the issue head-on, detailing “multiple levels” of biosafety, including restricted access, mandatory protective equipment and decontamination protocols.

CSU also says it’s not doing any really risky research at the lab.

And the school pointedly says it is no longer working with EcoHealth Alliance, the organization that originally had been tasked with procuring the bats.

EcoHealth was the conduit for U.S. taxpayer money flowing to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese lab that the U.S. government suspects was the source of the pandemic.

Before September’s new infusion of cash, the bat lab had already received $9 million in taxpayer financing, according to Rep. Paul Gosar, Arizona Republican. He led a letter in May, signed by five fellow Republicans, urging the House to use the fiscal year 2026 spending bills to defund the bat lab.

The Times reached out to NIH for this story. The agency demurred, citing the government shutdown.

“During the Democrat-led shutdown, mission-critical activities at NIH will continue. However, media responses from the agency may be delayed. We will work to answer your questions as soon as we are able,” the agency said.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is believed to have been conducting what’s known as gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. That’s a process where the viruses are prodded to evolve faster than they would in nature.

The theory is they can be studied in a controlled environment to see — and prepare for — how they might change and affect humans. The downside is a lab leak into a world not prepared for it.

CSU’s bat lab is slated to perform biosafety level 2 research. According to the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control, that kind of lab can work with SARS-CoV-2.

Ebola and Marburg viruses are classified as biosafety level 4, the highest level.

CSU already hosts Jamaican fruit bats, which it says are a “model organism” for Ebola and Marburg infections. It plans to establish a new breeding colony of Egyptian fruit bats, which are the principal natural reservoir of Marburg and Sosuga viruses.

The lab said the bats will be verified virus-free before being brought in for use in research.

CSU says on its website it “has no plans to conduct gain-of-function infectious disease research with bats that could increase the transmission of a virus or other pathogens to humans.”

But Dr. Bhattacharya, in his comments last year, said even if CSU wasn’t doing that research itself, hosting the bat colony to provide animals for others fuels the entire testing “ecosystem” that does include risky research at labs like NIH’s facility in Montana, a biosafety level 4 facility.

“You don’t have the bats from CSU, then you can’t do the bat research in Montana on Nipah,” he said.

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.