The viral research that may have led to the COVID-19 pandemic, and could have gotten former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci prosecuted for lying to Congress without his last-minute preemptive pardon, would reportedly be subject to a funding ban under a nascent executive order from President Trump.

"People familiar with the plans" told The Wall Street Journal the order would prohibit federally funded scientists from conducting gain-of-function research on viruses that could threaten humans, but one of them said it might exempt viruses including H5N1 bird flu, mitigation plans for which have already drawn alarm from presumptive Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

The Journal portrayed the dispute over research that makes pathogens more infectious, severe and capable of animal-to-human transmission as between congressional Republicans and experts who believe a funding ban would make future pandemics more likely and let other countries overtake the U.S. in research.

It omitted the fact that the Department of Energy, the federal government's biggest expert on biological research, believes the virus behind COVID leaked from a Chinese lab conducting such research that indirectly received U.S. funding, affirming the FBI's conclusion.

The White Coat Waste Project, which says it "first exposed and ended Fauci’s reckless funding" for the research in Wuhan that allegedly violated a federal pause on it, thanked Trump for reportedly "taking swift and decisive action to defund dangerous and wasteful animal experiments that can prompt pandemics" and promised WCW will "be working overtime to dismantle it" via legislation and the White House.

WCW worked with senators to block the funding as "the Biden Administration fought to continue bankrolling it and federal agencies have foolishly funded treacherous animal experiments to supercharge bird flu, monkeypox, and even coronaviruses," Senior Vice President Justin Goodman said.