Rep. Brad Wenstrup Grills Peter Daszak in Heated Exchange

Daszak confirms that in 2018 he submitted an application for a project named Diffuse. Ralph Baric from the University of NC and Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were collaborators.

Daszak admitted a strategy of downplaying the role of non-U.S. collaborators in the proposal to avoid negative perceptions by DARPA reviewers.

Wenstrup highlighted concerns regarding the biosafety protocols that were to be used for the research involving recombinant SARS coronaviruses. The issue here was that the work might be conducted under a lower biosafety level (BSL-2) in China, raising concerns that Daszak valued saving money over biosafety.

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