This week, two Republicans in the Florida congressional delegation–U.S. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Dan Webster–joined U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and a dozen other House Republicans in requesting a response to a series of questions regarding National Institutes of Health (NIH) employees receiving payments from private companies that are affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The letter comes after Open The Books, a government transparency group, released a report that identified at least 34 different Chinese companies who made royalty payments to NIH scientists from 2008 to 2021. The report also found that at least 59 payments originated from the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, a CCP controlled subsidiary connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the organization that multiple federal agencies now believe initially leaked the COVID-19 virus.
“These payments raise not only national security concerns but deepen concerns regarding the potential undue influence massive healthcare companies may have over public health agencies engaged in developing and regulating products and responding to public health threats – like COVID-19,” the members wrote. “The American people deserve to know that their public health officials follow the science and make decisions based purely on objective information, not personal financial motives.”
Other signers include U.S. Reps. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., Mary Miller, R-Ill., and Ralph Norman, R-SC.
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