Demand America First Science – Stop “Scientific Money Laundering” to China
Guest post by Lawrence Sellin
According to a recent report, the U.S. government, through the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Agency for International Development, may have made duplicate payments involving tens of millions of dollars for high-risk research in Wuhan, China prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Double billing is, however, only the tip of the “scientific money laundering” iceberg.
Billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been funneled into China’s research and development programs by siphoning off U.S. research funding to China-only projects or intellectual property transfer to China via U.S.-funded research.
Below are two examples engineered by the same People’s Liberation Army-trained scientist, Shibo Jiang, who worked in the United States for 20 years and received $18 million in research funding from Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) before returning to China.
During his entire time in the United States, Shibo Jiang actively collaborated with People’s Liberation Army research centers, while simultaneously inviting into his U.S. laboratory and training scientists linked to the Chinese military.
The first case involves NIAID research grant R01AI098775 awarded to Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine as Project Leader.
One of the two other Principal Investigators on the project is Shibo Jiang, who lists two affiliations related to grant R01AI098775:
- Laboratory of Viral Immunology, Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute, New York Blood Center, New York, NY, USA
- Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology of Ministries of Education and Health, Shanghai Medical College and Institute of Medical Microbiology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
With Shibo Jiang as the conduit, Fauci’s R01AI098775 grant funneled U.S. taxpayer money to support the research of multiple Chinese scientists with connections to the People’s Liberation Army.
Two of the publications arising from grant number R01AI098775 are worth noting, both dealing with coronaviruses and, strangely, in neither of which the Project Leader Peter Hotez participated.
That is, both studies were entirely designed and conducted by Chinese scientists.
- Wanbo Tai, Guangyu Zhao, Shihun Sun, Yan Guo, Yufei Wang, Xinrong Tao, Chien-Te K Tseng, Fang Li, Shibo Jiang, Lanying Du, Yusen Zhou. A recombinant receptor-binding domain of MERS-CoV in trimeric form protects human dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (hDPP4) transgenic mice from MERS-CoV infection. Virology. 2016 Dec; 499:375-382.
- Lei-Ping Zeng, Xing-Yi Ge, Cheng Peng, Wanbo Tai, Shibo Jiang, Lanying Du, Zheng-Li Shi. Cross-neutralization of SARS coronavirus-specific antibodies against bat SARS-like coronaviruses. Sci China Life Sci. 2017 Dec; 60(12):1399-1402.
In article #1, seven of the eleven authors (Wanbo Tai, Guangyu Zhao, Shihun Sun, Yan Guo, Yufei Wang, Lanying Du, Yusen Zhou) have connections to the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Beijing. Lanying Du was recruited by and worked with Shibo Jiang at the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute in New York.
In article #2, Wanbo Tai hides his affiliation with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Beijing. The last author is Zheng-Li Shi, the “Bat Woman” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology offering a link between the authors and the origin of the COVID-19 virus.
The second case involves the use of U.S. taxpayer research funding to provide experimental results to support a Chinese patent owned by the Chinese military.
Yuxian He worked in the laboratory of Shibo Jiang at the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute in New York City and was supported by research grants from Fauci’s NIAID, often misrepresenting the actual grant number (R01AI046221), perhaps deliberately. Some of the results from those studies were incorporated into a patent owned by the People’s Liberation Army’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences.
The time is long past to stop the hemorrhaging of U.S. research funding, results and intellectual property to China.
Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He had a civilian career in international business and medical research. Dr. Sellin is the author of Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution. His email address is lawrenc[email protected].