Dr. Anthony Fauci led the country's public health bureaucracy for decades.
He retired, but his fingerprints are still all over the system.
And one batty experiment from Anthony Fauci's playbook has GOP lawmakers on red alert.
Republicans Demand NIH Halt Taxpayer Funding For Colorado Bat Virus Lab After Bhattacharya Reversal
Senator Joni Ernst and Representative Paul Gosar are demanding Trump's NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya immediately halt funding for a controversial bat virus lab in Colorado.
"It is absolutely bonkers to spend tax dollars recreating the same sketchy Wuhan research in America," Ernst said.
Colorado State University is building a $13 million facility to breed bats and infect them with Ebola, Marburg, Nipah, and SARS-related coronaviruses.
The NIH under Bhattacharya just cut another $2.2 million check in September 2025 to keep the project moving forward.
That's on top of $8.4 million the agency already pumped into the lab.
Trump's NIH Director approved the funding despite publicly ripping the project just one year earlier.
"This is the kind of research that has the potential to impact your community, but not just your community, every community in the world," Bhattacharya warned in 2024.
He questioned who gave a "small group of people" the authority to "decide what risks the entire world gets to take."
EcoHealth Alliance And Wuhan Lab Connection Raises Gain-Of-Function Research Fears
The Colorado lab was designed and promoted by EcoHealth Alliance, the same organization that funneled U.S. taxpayer money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
EcoHealth's president, Dr. Peter Daszak, was formally debarred in January 2025 for five years after a House investigation revealed the group "facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight."
Congress found EcoHealth failed to report dangerous experiments that made bat viruses 10,000 times more infectious in mice.
The group also submitted a required research report nearly two years late, hiding gain-of-function work during the critical period right before COVID-19 emerged.
EcoHealth Alliance was supposed to capture bats in Bangladesh and ship them to Colorado.
After the debarment, Colorado State University cut ties with EcoHealth but kept building the lab anyway.
CSU already hosts Jamaican fruit bats for Ebola and Marburg research.
Now they're establishing a breeding colony of Egyptian fruit bats, which naturally carry Marburg and Sosuga viruses.
The bats will supposedly be "verified virus-free" before experiments begin.
That's the same promise made about every lab that's ever had an accident.
CSU Lab Accidents And Biosafety Concerns Terrify Fort Collins Residents
Documents obtained through open records requests revealed 64 lab accidents at Colorado State University between 2020 and 2023.
Staff got exposed to coronaviruses, Zika, rabies, and tuberculosis because researchers ignored basic safety rules like wearing gloves or lab coats when handling infected animals.
Previous accidents involved plague, Brucella, chikungunya, and Valley fever.
Anthony Bellotti from the White Coat Waste Project called the decision "a recipe for disaster straight out of Dr. Fauci's cookbook."
The Colorado lab is classified as Biosafety Level 2, which means it can legally work with SARS-CoV-2.
Ebola and Marburg are classified as Biosafety Level 4, the highest danger category.
CSU claims it "has no plans to conduct gain-of-function infectious disease research with bats."
EcoHealth made the exact same promise about Wuhan.
Ernst And Gosar Demand Trump Administration Stop Pandemic-Level Risk Research
In their letter to Bhattacharya, Ernst and Gosar noted millions in taxpayer money haven't been released yet.
"Please do that immediately and stop this batty research," they wrote.
"It is quite possible that lab research on bats and the coronaviruses they carry may be behind the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic," they added.
Gosar demanded NIH "immediately halt remaining funds and stop this project before more taxpayer dollars are wasted on research that carries pandemic-level risk with little clear benefit to the American people."
Emily Hilliard, press secretary at Health and Human Services, declined to answer questions about Bhattacharya's reversal.
Americans watched COVID-19 kill over a million people and destroy the economy.
Trump hired Bhattacharya to end Fauci's dangerous approach to virus research.
Now the NIH Director is funding research that mirrors what caused the pandemic.
This is exactly the kind of Deep State betrayal Trump warned about during the campaign.
Bhattacharya spent years building credibility as someone who understood these dangers.
One year into the job, he's either been captured by the system or wasn't the reformer Trump thought he was hiring.
Either way, Ernst and Gosar just handed Trump the evidence he needs to clean house.
The President shut down Fauci's operation once.
He can shut down Fauci's Colorado copycat too.
Ernst called it right the first time.
Absolutely bonkers.
Sources:
- Stephen Dinan, "Lawmakers urge NIH to stop taxpayer money for 'dangerous' bat virus lab in U.S.," Washington Times, January 13, 2026.
- White Coat Waste Project, "Lawmakers Demand End to NIH Funding for Fauci-era 'Wuhan West' bat lab in Colorado," January 12, 2026.
- Christine Dolan, "'Wuhan West': Seriously? It's 2025, and Colorado bat lab gets new funding from U.S. taxpayers," World Tribune, October 15, 2025.
- House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, "BREAKING: HHS Formally Debars EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Peter Daszak," January 18, 2025.
- Jon Fleetwood, "Documents Reveal Over 50 Safety Incidents at CSU's Virus Lab," Substack, March 25, 2024.
