NIH official finally admits taxpayers funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan - after years of denials | 16 May 1014 | At long last, National Institutes of Health (NIH) principal deputy director Lawrence Tabak admitted to Congress Thursday that US taxpayers funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China in the months and years before the COVID-19 pandemic. "Dr. Tabak," asked Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, "did NIH fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through [Manhattan-based nonprofit] EcoHealth [Alliance]?" "It depends on your definition of gain-of-function research,” Tabak answered. "If you’re speaking about the generic term, yes, we did." The response comes after more than four years of evasions from federal public health officials - including Tabak himself and former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Dr. Anthony Fauci - about the controversial research practice that modifies viruses to make them more infectious.