research data from peer reviewers in an effort to retain funding from the National Institutes of Health .
"Our review of EcoHealth Alliance’s reports about its humanized mice experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology using funds from the National Institutes of Health shows pervasive discrepancies, inconsistencies, and omissions in its progress reports and renewal application that raise serious questions about scientific and ethical misconduct, violations of NIH policies and regulations, and possible false statements and fraud," the Republicans wrote.
Around the beginning of November 2018, EcoHealth submitted a renewal application to NIAID and the grant was renewed for another five years. That grant, issued prior to EcoHealth submitting its Year 5 progress report, was valued at $3.7 million plus a $369,819 increase over the first award, the letter said.
Pointing to three documents from EcoHealth – the Year 4 progress report, the renewal application for the NIAID grant, and the Year 5 progress report – the Republicans targeted the group over language it used in reports related to the mice experiment that prevented peer reviewers from seeing complete results of the research that may have been shut down with no further grant renewal.
In addition, the Republicans stated that the complete results of the experiment showed discrepancies and omissions that would have prompted questions from peer reviewers about the conduct of the experiment.