{"id":2419,"date":"2023-04-27T15:10:36","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T15:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=2419"},"modified":"2023-04-27T15:25:56","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T15:25:56","slug":"wisconsin-members-of-congress-want-answers-about-uw-lab-leaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=2419","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin Members of Congress Want Answers About UW Lab Leaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/wisconsin-members-of-congress-want-answers-about-uw-lab-leaks\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"UW<\/p>\n

Wisconsin\u2019s Republican members of Congress want answers about two separate years-old lab leaks reported at UW-Madison.<\/p>\n

Congressman Mike Gallagher, along with U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, and other Republicans this week sent a letter the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes for Health, and the Centers for Disease Control asking for details about reported exposures to a genetically modified form of the H5N1 virus.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the many impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had is an increasing awareness of gain-of-function research\u00a0\u2013 and specifically the Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 role in funding this research. A recent article has brought to light possible exposure incidents involving gain-of-function research which appears to have been funded by HHS at a University of Wisconsin-Madison,\u201d Gallagher wrote in the letter. \u201cWe write to request information on biosafety incidents at HHS-funded research institutions such as UW-Madison.\u201d<\/p>\n

An article published in the USA Today<\/a><\/strong> earlier this month detailed the exposures.<\/p>\n

One happened back in 2013, when a researcher accidentally jabbed a needle through their protective gear. The other happened in 2019 when a research assistant was in the lab, but their protective suit wasn\u2019t sealed.<\/p>\n

Gallagher and the others say it appears the Department of Health and Human Services played a role in funding gain-of-function research on the virus, and therefore needs to be open and honest about the safety of that research.<\/p>\n

The report of these two researchers\u2019 potential exposure to a genetically engineered virus and alleged failures to adequately address said exposures raises questions about HHS\u2019s oversight of biosafety incidents,\u201d Gallagher added.<\/p>\n

The USA Today story says despite the possible exposures at the UW-Madison lab, full reports weren\u2019t passed along immediately. In one case it took two months for all of the reports to be filed.<\/p>\n

Gallagher and the rest of Wisconsin\u2019s Republican members of Congress want the complete list of all biosafety incidents reported to HHS from 2013 to present, a copy of any reports submitted to HHS regarding the two biosafety incidents, as well as information and safety policy reports for any research institution receiving HHS funds.<\/p>\n

Gallagher and the rest are also asking for answers about whether HHS requires institutions to notify local and\/or state health officials when an actual or potential exposure occurs, whether HHS provides guidance on what qualifies as an exposure, potential exposure, or non-exposure in the event of a biosafety incident, and how often HHS conducts inspections or audits of research facilities working with infectious agents.<\/p>\n

The Congressmen have given HHS a deadline of May 19 to respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/wisconsin-members-of-congress-want-answers-about-uw-lab-leaks\/ Wisconsin\u2019s Republican members of Congress want answers about two…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2419"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2422,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419\/revisions\/2422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}