Trump wants to restrict virus research, which he considers "dangerous," citing the example of Covid

Surrounded by representatives of several health agencies, the American president signed an executive order intended to "improve the safety and security of biological research."

Among the measures announced is the end of US federal funding for certain research programs located abroad that include so-called "gain-of-function" research. This work involves the deliberate modification of pathogens. In virology, for example, it allows for the study of the evolution of viruses by artificially making them more virulent or transmissible, with the aim of preventing future pandemics and developing vaccines. But for some specialists, the risks of accidents are too great for the low benefits.

The case of Covid

The Trump administration has blamed these practices for the recent global pandemic that has killed more than a million people in the United States and millions more worldwide.

According to them, the Sars-CoV-2 virus was born from such research funded by the United States, among others, and carried out by the Chinese Institute of Virology in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic began.

"This nightmare is likely the result of a few scientists manipulating Mother Nature in a lab with technology exported from the United States," Marty Makary, the new head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said Monday.

Once considered a conspiracy theory, this lab leak theory has recently gained popularity in the United States and is now supported by American officials with varying degrees of certainty . However, it remains widely debated among scientists.

Just like the qualification or not of "gain of function research" attributed to the work financed by American funds in Wuhan.

The measures announced on Monday explicitly mention China as a country in which such research can no longer be funded.

"There is no laboratory that is immune to leaks - and this will prevent accidental leaks from occurring in the future and endangering humanity," Surgeon General Robert Kennedy Jr. insisted.

The order also calls for the development of a strategy to "govern, limit, and monitor" such research in the United States and an end to funding other types of research in countries deemed to lack sufficient oversight.