A proposed research lab in Colorado would bring together bats and deadly diseases in the name of research, according to a new report.
The report in U.K.’s Daily Mail says that the project will cost $12 million in public money.
In July, Colorado State University received a major piece of the funding through a $6.7 million grant from the National Institute of Health, according to CBS.
The Mail report said the partnership also includes EcoHealth Alliance, a longtime funding recipient of taxpayer cash during the days Dr. Anthony Fauci ran the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was a partner in experimenting with the coronavirus in Wuhan, China.
The Mail report said the new lab is scheduled to open in 2025 on the college’s Fort Collins campus, but said no public plans have been shown for the 14,000-square-foot facility it said would study bats and highly transmissible viruses such as Ebola and the coronavirus.
A college document from December said researchers plan to “infect horseshoe bats with SARS-CoV2 and a SARSr-CoV detected in these bats,” the Mail reported.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa is opposed to the project.
“We cannot allow any batty experiments of pandemic potential to be unleashed on our own shores,” she said. “Americans have suffered enough from Fauci-funded risky research, which is why I am working to defund EcoHealth that funneled taxpayer dollars to the Chinese state-run Wuhan Lab.”
“The world cannot afford another lab leak, especially one on U.S. soil or near our military bases,” she said.
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The project was developed by EcoHealth, NIAID, the college and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is suspected as the site of a leak that triggered the pandemic.
Justin Goodman, senior vice president of the watchdog group White Collar Waste said, “These actors put in a considerable effort to establish the CSU bat facility over many years and exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to receive funding for it.”
The Mail said neither the college, EcoHealth, the NIH or NIAID would comment on the report.
Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana said he opposes the project, just as he opposes research done on bats in his home state.
“Taxpayers shouldn’t be funding EcoHealth Alliance or the construction of new US labs that import Asian bats for risky virus research that can cause a pandemic on US soil,” he said.
“My common sense amendments to the NIH’s 2024 spending bill would undo some of the damage done by Anthony Fauci by defunding NIH research programs he supported that put public health and national security at risk,” he said.
Colorado’s Libertarian Party has already dubbed the project a “bioweapons lab,” according to the Denver Post.
“Health officials, whether intentionally or not, misled the public on important aspects of the pandemic and the response. Such matters include: the origin of SARS-COV2, the effectiveness of masks, lockdowns, school and business closures, the effectiveness of vaccines and more. This undermines trust in health institutions to conduct this research properly,” party communications director Jordan Marinovich said.
Area resident Christine Bowman said in July that a meeting about the project left her with more concerns than answers.
“Why do we have to play with nature? I think it’s too soon to shove this down the public’s throat and put the community at risk. I’m not a scientist, but I say all the time I have a Ph.D. in common sense,” she said.
“Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should,” Bowman said. “This is straight out of ‘Jurassic Park.’”
