The Senate chamber erupted in cheers Tuesday after unanimously passing an amendment introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to ban U.S. taxpayer funding for gain-of-function research in China.
Senate Amendment 2003, which was added to the bipartisan Endless Frontier Act, bans the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and any other U.S. agency from funding any Chinese gain-of-function research, which is a form of study that attempts to render pathogens more infectious and lethal. Paul’s amendment joined another introduced by Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Ron Johnson (R-WI) that permanently prohibits U.S. funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology.