A bipartisan group of senators this week urged President Biden to order U.S. intelligence agencies to more vigorously pursue the investigation, and called for immediate probe to the emergence of smallpox in the south of the country.

The threat to international health and security posed by the Chinese Communist Party’s repressive and opaque governance of the People’s Republic of China has become glaringly apparent over the past eighteen months, particularly given the PRC’s efforts to conceal the severity and scope of the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the COVID-19 -19 pandemic, the senators stated in a July 27 letter to the president.

The PRC’ s refusal to cooperate with the World Health Organization investigation into COVID-19 origins, the gag order it imposed on Chinese scientists and medical personnel, and its ongoing obfuscation and disinformation campaign regarding the pandemic have caused severe hardship worldwide, the authors emphasised.

The letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez and Mark R. Warner, chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, respectively, and Sens. James E. Risch and Marco Rubio, vice chairman and ranking Republican members of those panels. The senators noted the May directive by the White House ordering U.S. intelligence agencies to seek a “definitive conclusion” regarding the pandemic origin.

To prevent another deadly and damaging pandemic, the senators asked Mr. Biden to ensure that spy agencies zero in on where the virus originated and how it first spread.

If the 90-day effort you have announced does not yield conclusions in which the United States has a high degree of confidence, we urge you to direct the intelligence community to continue prioritizing this inquiry until such conclusions are possible, they stated.



Investigation in China must be launched

Additionally, the senators want the U.S. government to lead an international forensic investigation inside China.

In light of the PRC’s continued stonewalling of WHO efforts, the U.S. government should work with our allies and partners to use all available resources and tools to pressure Beijing to permit a serious investigation, they stated.

American government funding of gain-of-function virus research in China also should be part of the intelligence probe.

U.S. taxpayer funding should not support any collaboration with PRC entities that pose health, economic or security risks for the United States, the senators said. The PRC has demonstrated lax biosecurity standards, violated international health regulations, attempted to steal intellectual property related to COVID-19 vaccines, and may be in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention.


Mysterious cases of smallpox in Texas and Florida

Senators also called upon the White House for an FBI probe into the emergence of much more deadly and infectious sickness of smallpox. Last week, the health authorities reported five cases, while Florida informed about another four. All of the returnees came from Communist China, Hong Kong, and at least three also visited one of the African countries. The states said that they are treating these cases as mysterious and called for the help of specialist federal institutions.