House com­mit­tee chair re­quests in­fo from FDA on fund­ing for tri­als in­volv­ing 'vi­ral ma­nip­u­la­tion'

Re­pub­li­can mem­bers of Con­gress want FDA Com­mis­sion­er Robert Califf and his agency to pro­vide more in­for­ma­tion on the re­search FDA has fund­ed that ma­nip­u­lates cer­tain virus­es like the SARS-CoV-2 virus — af­ter the FDA con­firmed that cer­tain stud­ies it fund­ed in­volved vi­ral ma­nip­u­la­tion, but in stan­dard ways that are com­mon in mol­e­c­u­lar bi­ol­o­gy.

The three-page let­ter, signed Mon­day by House En­er­gy and Com­merce Com­mit­tee Chair Cathy Mc­Mor­ris Rodgers (R-WA) and Sub­com­mit­tee Chairs Brett Guthrie (R-KY) and Mor­gan Grif­fith (R-VA), kicked things off by say­ing that the com­mit­tee was look­ing in­to FDA’s over­sight of “FDA-fund­ed re­search that may pose sig­nif­i­cant biosafe­ty or biose­cu­ri­ty risks.”

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