BREAKING: State Dept. Continues to Fund Programs Which Might Have Caused Pandemic. VIDEO: Claims it Was Funding “Biosafety” and Claims Examination is “Conspiracy Theory”

When questioned re refusing to disclose info re funding EcoHealth Alliance, Ralph Baric & the Wuhan Institute of Virology, USAID representative walks off the stage, Ned Price stonewalls questioning.

This posting has been updated with a transcript, below. Original posting is here, the word “PREDICT” has been removed from the headline, but the substance stands.

The March 9 news conference began with an overview of the FY 2024 budget request for the State Department and USAID. At one point, Paloma Adams-Allen, USAID deputy administrator for management and resources, while going through a litany of programs, referred to “745 million for USAID to prepare for, prevent, detect, and respond to future infectious disease threats.” I had misheard this as a direct reference to PREDICT, which funded EcoHealth Alliance and which I asked about last month and never received an answer, so I asked about it. Apparently USAID is requesting more funding for this kind of work, likely through a successor program. PREDICT was reported to have had its funding cut roughly around the time of the emergence of Covid, in late October 2019. Still, Adams-Allen below says she will provide a response to the question of how much PREDICT is getting. Pete Lincoln and Emily Koop noted after my initial posting that USAID has a replacement program called DEEP VZN (Discovery and Exploration of Emerging Pathogens — Viral Zoonoses) which USAID announced in 2019 would get $125 million. Prof. Richard Ebright has highlighted this program. Adams-Allen’s remarks indicate that this program and/or possibly others like it are slated for significantly more money. There’s also Strategies to Prevent Spillover (STOP Spillover). I will report if and when I get a written response from State/USAID.