WHO researcher investigating origins of COVID-19 worked with Wuhan lab for 18 years, received money from China

Peter Daszak, a top member of the World Health Organization's investigative team that recently announced the Wuhan lab was ruled out as an origin point for the coronavirus, reportedly accepted grant money from the Chinese government and worked at the Wuhan lab for years.

The WHO announced its conclusion Friday that the Wuhan lab was "extremely unlikely" to be the pandemic's birthplace.

"The findings suggest that the laboratory incidents hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus to the human population," the statement continued.

Daszak serves as the president of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, a research organization that partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the same lab that many have speculated to be the origin point of the coronavirus. He was reportedly a leader on a project funded by a $3.7 million “grant supporting bat coronavirus surveillance at Wuhan Institute of Virology and… bat coronavirus gain-of-function research at Wuhan Institute of Virology," the National Pulse reports.

He said that he "had no conflicts of interest" despite working with the lab since 2003, the Washington Post reported in April.

Daszak has previously warned the public not to "rely too much on US intel" in relation to coronavirus information, because it is "wrong on many aspects” and "politically charged." He also reportedly donated 13 times to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Daszak's research with the WIV raised red flags for officials at the National Institutes of Health, prompting the NIH to suspend its grants towards the WIV's research.

The NIH’s Deputy Director for Extramural Research, Dr. Michael Lauer, announced the grant suspensions in a statement.

"It is our understanding that one of the sub-recipients of the grant funds is the Wuhan Institute of Virology ('WIV'). It is our understanding that WIV studies the interaction between corona viruses and bats. The scientific community believes that the coronavirus causing COVID-19 jumped from bats to humans likely in Wuhan where the COVID-19 pandemic began," Dr. Lauer said.

"There are now allegations that the current crisis was precipitated by the release from WIV of the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. Given these concerns, we are pursuing suspension of WIV from participation in Federal programs," he announced.

Daszak also revealed, while speaking at a conference sponsored by a Chinese government-run media company, that he is a recipient of money from the CCP. He said his organization "has been working in China in collaboration with Chinese scientists and the government of China for over 15 years supported by federal funding from the U.S. and federal funding from China."

Daszak has praised the Beijing-based World Conference on Science Literacy, which is sponsored by the CCP's China Association for Science and Technology (CAST).