On May 5, 2025, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order halting all federal funding for a controversial form of scientific study called gain-of-function research. This decision comes years after widespread debate over whether COVID-19 was the result of a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China. The new policy blocks current and future U.S. funding of such research in countries deemed unsafe, including China and Iran, and calls for stricter oversight of similar experiments conducted in the United States.

“There’s no laboratory that’s immune from leaks,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “This is going to prevent inadvertent leaks from happening in the future and endangering humanity.”

Trump’s action directly targets the kind of experiments that many experts believe may have caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Gain-of-function research involves modifying viruses or pathogens to make them more infectious or deadly in order to study how they might evolve naturally. While some scientists believe this research is important for pandemic preparedness, others say it creates an unacceptable risk.

What Is Gain-of-Function Research?

Gain-of-function, sometimes called “dual-use” research, refers to the process of enhancing a pathogen’s ability to infect, spread, or cause illness. In theory, this can help scientists understand future threats and create better treatments or vaccines. In practice, however, it has raised serious safety concerns.

“The conduct of this research does not protect us against pandemics, as some people might say,” said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Director of the National Institutes of Health. “There’s always a danger that in doing this research, it might leak out, just by accident even, and cause a pandemic.”

COVID-19 and the Wuhan Lab Controversy

The origins of COVID-19 have been the subject of intense debate – it likely originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), where gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses was taking place.

President Trump has long supported the lab-leak theory. “I said that right from day one, it leaked out,” he said during the signing of the order. “Whether it was to the girlfriend or somebody else, [a] scientist walked outside to have lunch with the girlfriend or was together with a lot of people — but that’s how it leaked out in my opinion. I’ve never changed that opinion.”

Multiple U.S. agencies now support the possibility of a lab origin. The FBI, Department of Energy, and even the CIA have either endorsed or leaned toward the lab-leak explanation. The Department of Defense has also uncovered troubling gaps in U.S. oversight of research grants involving potential pandemic pathogens.

U.S. Taxpayer Dollars and the Wuhan Lab

One of the most alarming aspects of this controversy is the discovery that U.S. taxpayer money helped fund the Wuhan lab’s work. Between 2014 and 2021, the NIH and USAID funneled over $1.4 million in research grants to EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit. That group, in turn, sent funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for a project titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”

Former NIH principal deputy director Dr. Lawrence Tabak admitted during congressional testimony that these grants supported experiments that some scientists and officials have classified as gain-of-function. One project, called Project DEFUSE, proposed inserting a “furin cleavage site” into a coronavirus to enhance its infectivity in humans — a feature found in SARS-CoV-2. Though the project was never officially funded, documents suggest similar experiments may have been conducted under different grants.

“This is a historic day,” Kennedy said after the executive order was signed. “The end of gain-of-function research funding by the federal government and also controls by private corporations on gain-of-function studies.”

Red Flags Ignored by U.S. Officials

The Wuhan Institute of Virology had long raised concerns among experts. Dr. Richard Ebright, a microbiologist at Rutgers University, warned for years that the lab was engaged in high-risk research with minimal oversight. “If one of these pathogens is released accidentally or if they are released deliberately, they can cause pandemics,” Ebright said.

Reports from the State Department and other federal agencies revealed that several researchers at the Wuhan lab became sick with COVID-like symptoms just before the outbreak. Despite this, Chinese authorities denied any illness among lab workers and blocked international investigations.

“There is no evidence of multiple animal-to-human transmissions,” said Dr. Steven Quay, a medical researcher. “It would be expected that 200 to 400 humans would have been infected from animal contact, based on the natural outbreak experiences of SARS.”

Dr. Quay and others pointed out that the virus appeared “optimized” for human infection from the beginning, something that usually takes time in natural outbreaks. They argued this was likely the result of artificial enhancement in the lab.

A Dangerous Game with Global Consequences

Trump’s executive order aims to put a stop to what many now see as a reckless and dangerous type of science. The White House said the new policy “will drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

The order also blocks funding to any foreign nation deemed to lack proper research safeguards and requires the development of a new strategy to monitor dangerous biological research within the U.S. The Office of Science and Technology Policy and national security leaders, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are tasked with drafting these new rules.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that gain-of-function research was tied to “a bioweapons arms race” that started after the 2001 anthrax attacks. “We can’t point to a single good thing that’s come from it,” he said. “I commend President Trump for his courage and his vision in ending U.S. bioweapons research.”

A New Direction for American Science

Despite concerns that halting this research could weaken pandemic preparedness, the Trump administration insists it will not stop essential health research. Instead, it will separate helpful scientific work from experiments that pose a direct threat to human life.

“The vast majority of science will go on under this as normal,” said Dr. Bhattacharya. “But the truly dangerous work — the kind that may have caused the worst pandemic in modern history — is finally being reined in.”

Senator Joni Ernst, who pushed for an audit of research funding in China, praised the move. “I have been fighting for years to end the insane practice of sending tax dollars to China for sketchy pseudoscience,” she said. “This is a great win for the American people and common sense.”

By closing the door on funding experiments that could spark the next pandemic, Trump is sending a clear message: protecting lives and restoring public trust in science come first