Breaking News: President Trump Bans Deadly Gain-of-Function Research that Likely Caused the Pandemic

By Louis Conte and Adam Garrie, The Kennedy Beacon

With Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at his side, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order Monday ending federal funding of gain-of-function research “in countries of concern” while increasing safety and security “of U.S. biological research without hindering innovation.”

Kennedy was joined at the White House by members of his HHS team – including NIH Director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and FDA Commissioner, Dr. Marty Makary – and commended President Trump for his “courage and his vision in ending US bioweapons research.” Kennedy added, “In all of the history of gain-of-function research, we can’t point to a single good thing that has come from it.”

The Library of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines gain-of-function research on viruses as “enhancing transmissibility, virus replication, virulence, host range, immune evasion or drug and vaccine resistance to get insights into the viral mechanisms, to create and analyze animal models, to accelerate drug and vaccine development and to improve pandemic preparedness,”

Key features of the Executive Order:

• Ends any present and all future federal funding of dangerous gain-of-function research in countries of concern like China and Iran and in foreign nations deemed to have insufficient research oversight.

• Empowers American research agencies to identify and end [federal funding of other biological research that could pose a threat to American public health, public safety, or national security.

• Prohibits federal funding for foreign research likely to cause another pandemic.

• These measures will drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like those conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

• Protects Americans from lab accidents and other biosecurity incidents, such as those that likely caused COVID-19 and the 1977 Russian flu.

Under the leadership of former National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases (NAIAD) Director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, billions of taxpayer dollars had been allocated to gain-of-function research. In 2014, the Obama administration understood that there were safety problems with biolabs in the U.S. and ‘paused’ gain-of-function research. But, crucially, according to Kennedy, he did not stop gain-of-function in facilities outside of the U.S. such as Wuhan. “Following recent biosafety incidents at Federal research facilities,” President Obama said at the time, “the U.S. Government has taken a number of steps to promote and enhance the Nation’s biosafety and biosecurity, including immediate and longer-term measures to review activities specifically related to the storage and handling of infectious agents.”

President Obama’s statement noted further: “Specifically, the funding pause will apply to gain-of-function research projects that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route.”

Why President Biden pardoned Anthony Fauci

Fauci, who led NIAID from 1984 - 2022, disregarded President Obama’s moratorium on gain-of-function research and moved the dangerous research to China through a pass-through partner – Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance. Fauci’s actions set the world on a perilous path that ultimately led to the Covid pandemic, which killed an estimated 17 million people.

The White House now asserts the pandemic was the result of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Monday night, Kennedy explained the history of gain-of-function research and Fauci’s actions to Fox Laura Ingraham , stating, “Anthony Fauci essentially restarted the bioweapons arms race and did it under the pretense of developing vaccines.” Kennedy added, “The President of the United States today moved to shut down this kind of research in this country and stopped funding it abroad.”

Events of the past few days suggested that the Trump administration was planning for a dramatic move to reign in the bioweapons industrial complex.

Last Thursday, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, informed Megyn Kelly that there was an active investigation into Fauci’s funding of gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan Lab. Gabbard reported that she is working with NIH Director Bhattacharya and Secretary Kennedy to determine if the Covid 19 virus was created by funding supplied to the Wuhan Lab through Fauci’s partner at that lab, the EcoHealth Alliance.

Dr. Richard H. Ebright stated in a 2023 article in Counter Punch that Fauci "Systematically Thwarted" Obama’s pause in gain-of-function research.

President Biden pardoned Fauci just before leaving office in January. The pardon goes back to January 1, 2014, the starting point of Fauci’s efforts to evade Obama’s moratorium.

A few days before pardoning Fauci, the Department of Health and Human Services debarred Ecco Health Alliance from future funding but, suspiciously, did not refer Daszak for criminal prosecution.

But back to Fauci.

The pardon’s time period also covers Fauci’s congressional testimony during which he lied to Senator Rand Paul about funding gain-of-function research. Fauci attempted to wordsmith his way through his testimony by jiggering the definition of gain-of-function. Senator Paul alleged that Fauci changed the definition on the NIH website the day before his testimony.

On April 29, Kennedy ordered the shutdown of the NAIAD biolab studying ‘Deadly Infectious Diseases’ at Fort Detrick, the U.S. Army Futures Command located in Frederick, Maryland.

Dr. Meryl Nass, who has been studying biolabs for decades wrote in her substack that the NIH complex at Fort Detrick “is humongous” and asked, “What is going on there?”

President Trump’s executive order and Kennedy’s decision to close the lab ensures that it will no longer host gain-of-function research. And the NIH’s Fort Detrick complex – and every other biolab outside of the U.S. – will no longer receive taxpayer dollars to conduct such dangerous research.

This interactive Map of Global Biolabs, as of July 2021, shows that level 3 and 4 biolabs exist around the globe. The map was created by Gregory D. Koblentz, an Associate Professor and Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government.

One would think that these labs would be placed in Antarctica.

Nope.

According to Fauci’s NIAID, the majority of U.S. government-funded Biocontainment Research Facilities are operated at major universities near major population centers.

Doesn’t that make you feel safe?

The New York Times briefly reported on the executive order but clung to its legacy media narrative, contradicting the White House. A number of published studies pointed instead to a market in Wuhan as the origin of the pandemic, contending that evidence strongly suggests that wild mammals picked up a bat coronavirus and that when the animals were sold at the market, they passed the virus to people,” the Times wrote.

Nass applauded Trump’s executive order. “It is an important first step,” she wrote. “The only way to stop biological warfare and future pandemics is to stop funding this research.” Nass recommended that the Trump administration modify and strengthen the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention. “There are 183 countries who signed on to the agreement,” she wrote. “It needs to include inspections and punishments like the Chemical Weapons Convention.”

We now know what Anthony Fauci was pardoned for. His deception led to the reckless manslaughter of millions of people.

President Trump’s new EO, signed on Monday, can’t undo the horrific and avoidable tragedy that unfolded during Covid, but it can help ensure it never happens again.