Billions for Biolabs
Hidden among thousands of pages
The United States has been funding biological laboratories (commonly referred to as biolabs) for decades. Twenty years ago, there were already close to 1,500 biolabs operating in the country, home to a variety of potentially lethal pathogens. The figure today is unknown.
In the spending bill that was introduced and defeated last week, meanwhile, the federal government made known its plans to fund yet more biolabs on American soil.
The bill, a mammoth document of over 1,500 pages, was made available to lawmakers for less than one day to peruse before voting. The title, “Further Continuing Appropriations and Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2025,” provides no hint of anything related to laboratories where deadly pathogens will be studied, and perhaps also provided with a "gain of function" before being replicated.
The press release accompanying the bill similarly failed to so much as allude to biolabs and funding for research into dangerous substances. It focused on matters more likely to garner bipartisan support, such as “disaster assistance for relief efforts.” Federal officials assured anyone asking that the bill only contained measures which were “necessary to address recovery efforts,” adding that it “maintains key policy riders such as pro-life and Second Amendment protections.”
The sections of this bill related to new biolabs are to be found on pages 744-748, where the reader discovers that over $100 million would have been allocated to “establish or maintain not fewer than 12 regional biocontainment laboratories,” with either BSL-2 or BSL-3 safety designations (“$52,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2025 and 2026”).
Biosafety level 2 (BSL-2) covers all laboratories that work with pathogens associated with human diseases which pose a “moderate” health hazard, such as HIV or staphylococcus aureus (staph infections). Laboratory workers are required to wear protective gloves and eye-guards and must take precautions in general against skin contact with the pathogens being researched.
Research conducted in BSL-3 laboratories generally focuses on more dangerous pathogens which can cause lethal disease not only via direct contact but also via inhalation (aerosols) — pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes tuberculosis, Bacillus anthracis, which causes anthrax, yellow fever, and also SARS-CoV-2 and MERS.
Those who work in BSL-3 labs are generally under medical surveillance. They must not only dress in protective garments but also have to breathe using respirators. Airflow within these labs is tightly controlled and access is prohibited to non-lab workers.
The bill’s description of the labs focuses on the “public health” aspect of the research for the purposes of:
Conducting biomedical research to support public health and medical preparedness for, and rapid response to, biological agents, including emerging infectious diseases;
Ensuring the availability of surge capacity for purposes of responding to such biological agents;
Supporting information sharing between, and the dissemination of findings to, researchers and other relevant individuals to facilitate collaboration between industry and academia; [and]
Providing, as appropriate and applicable, technical assistance and training to researchers and other relevant individuals to support the biomedical research workforce in improving the management and mitigation of safety and security risks in the conduct of research involving such biological agents.
Getting ready for the next pandemic...
Other parts of the bill would have dedicated funding to pandemic-related programs. Under the heading, “Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program,” the bill discusses eventualities in which a pathogen might cause a pandemic, “including pandemic influenza.” The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is already in the process of manufacturing mRNA “vaccines” for such a pandemic-level influenza; apparently, Bill Gates is also busying himself on the same task.
The now-scrapped bill would have allocated around $1.5 billion toward pandemics: “$735,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2025 and 2026.” This is on top of the over $1 billion that was already allocated to preparations for “bird flu pandemic” back in March.
But not all diseases cause pandemics, and the bill did not ignore lesser threats. On p. 730, one can find details of “manufacturers” and “private entities” who would have been part of a group dedicated to combating zoonotic diseases, those that are thought to be transmitted between animals and humans. Members of this group were to have been engaged in “accelerat[ing] basic and applied research and development for new antibiotics, antifungals, and other related therapeutics and vaccines.”
... which we know is coming (because we're making it?)
Developing plans for a potential pandemic might be considered a good use of taxpayer money. But what if the pandemic is the result of taxpayer-funded research? Some claim this is what happened with the COVID “pandemic” and may be what could happen with bird flu.
Documents recently obtained by a group called the “White Coat Waste Project” detailed research being conducted by the USDA (at its Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory) along with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute. The federal government has already given over $1 million in funding to support “gain-of-function” research into avian influenza; research began in 2021 and is slated to continue until 2026 at least.
The report noted that the viruses being studied are “highly pathogenic” and able to cause neurological complications in humans. Several of the strains succeeded in making the birds “severely ill.”
From birds to cows to humans
Another team recently gained attention for its research into bovine H5N1, avian influenza in dairy cows. This team, at Scripps Research in California, has been investigating ways to make this type of flu more dangerous for humans. They found that adding two specific mutations increased the virus’s ability to bind to human cells to “near-pandemic levels.”
Their justification for the research — the standard justification for all gain-of-function research — was that such work is vital in order to be prepared for a future pandemic.
Unnamed “experts” told The Telegraph that since the research focused on the virus’ proteins rather than the whole virus, there was no danger of anything harmful leaking from the lab.
Dr. Fillipa Lentzos of King’s College, a member of the UK Biosecurity Leadership Council, nonetheless expressed her concern saying that “more thought should have been given to biosafety implications.”
There are no major biosafety concerns with the experiment itself. However, in light of current debates about risky bioresearch, the paper should have addressed biosafety and biosecurity concerns head-on as we clearly don’t want to accidentally seed a human-made pandemic or give people ideas of how to do so.
She also noted that the research seems to be of dubious value, as the need to be prepared for the potential for bovine-avian flu jumping to humans can already be addressed.
We should of course anyway be preparing for bovine H5N1 to jump to humans so it is not clear the research adds much in terms of actually changing bio-preparedness strategies.
No more oversight
The mammoth bill has now disappeared from the federal to-do list, though not due to the inclusion of funding for potentially dangerous research. However, the research continues regardless, and this May, a new rule was issued by the US Office of Science and Technology allowing any federal department to waive safety oversight on high-risk research into enhanced pathogens. Waivers can be given for up to 180 days at a time and may be renewed.
The new policy applies to all kinds of pathogens including those considered at high risk as well as others which are officially extinct (such as smallpox and the 1918 flu) but which could potentially be “resurrected.”
