(Washington) Donald Trump announced on Monday a series of measures aimed at restricting certain research carried out in virology which he considers “dangerous” and accuses of being behind the pandemic of Cavid-19.
Posted at 9:2 p.m. 21 a.m.
Surrounded by representatives of several Health agencies, the American president signed an executive decree intended to “improve the security and security of biological research”.
Among the measures announced is the end of American federal funding granted to certain research programs located abroad and including so -called “function gain” research.
These works consist of the deliberate modification of pathogens. In virology, they allow for example to study the evolution of viruses by making them artificially more virulent or transmitted, with the aim of preventing future pandemics and developing vaccines. But for some specialists, the risks of accident is too large, for a low profit.
For the Trump administration, these practices are said to be behind the recent world pandemic which has killed more than a million people in the United States, and millions of others in the world.
According to them, the SARS-COV-2 virus was born from such research funded, among other things by the United States and carried out by the Chinese Virology Institute of Wuhan, the cradle of the pandemic.
“This nightmare is probably the result of a few scientists who have manipulated mother nature in a laboratory with an exported technology in the United States,” said Marty Makary, a new head of the American Medicines (FDA).
A time qualified as a conspirator, this laboratory flight theory has recently gained popularity in the United States and is now supported by American authorities to various degrees of certainty. But it is nonetheless largely debated by scientists.
Just as the qualification or not of “research gain” attributed to the work funded by American funds in Wuhan.
The measures announced on Monday explicitly mention China as a country in which this research can no longer be funded.
“There is no laboratory that is sheltered from leaks – and this will prevent accidental leaks from happening in the future and endanger humanity,” insisted on X Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy Jr.
The decree also calls for the development of a strategy to “governing, limiting and monitoring” this type of research in the United States and the end of funding other types of research in countries deemed to be sufficient supervision.
It is part of broader efforts of the new American government to reshape American scientific and health policy, in particular through massive cuts in the budgets of research and massive dismissals of scientists in federal agencies.
