GOP Sen. Ernst: US must guard against dangerous research after funding Wuhan lab

Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst on Friday said that the government needed to crack down on funding dangerous research in hostile countries in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We should never ever have continued to send dollars to the Wuhan Institute of virology, especially after what happened in China with COVID-19," she declared on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show. "And yet, our government continued to funnel money to the NIH [National Institutes of Health], which was then funneled to the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

"[W]e can't have US dollars going to this type of experimentation and research, especially when it's located in China, where we cannot wrap our arms around the types of experimentation that is being done. And we have literally no control," she said. "[W]e have to be very careful about what we're doing, how we're approaching it, making sure again, that the programs are vetted."

"But let this be a cautionary tale, that we do have to pay attention to our taxpayer dollars. And the types of experimentation that could be done in a number of these other countries," Ernst continued.

"I have less concerns when we have good relationships with other countries and that they are open, they're transparent, they're willing to share what is being worked on. But when you have dollars going to adversaries like China, we have no control over that," Ernst went on. "So I'm glad we have stopped this arm of funding. But we will have to keep our eyes open in the future."

Several federal agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Energy, have come to the conclusion that COVID-19 likely emerged as the result of a lab leak at the Wuhan lab, which was known to have been studying coronaviruses.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.