Fauci says White House told NIH to cancel funding for bat virus study

The White House directed the National Institutes of Health to cancel funding for a project studying how coronaviruses spread from bats to people, the government's top infectious disease expert said Tuesday.

"Why was it canceled? It was canceled because the NIH was told to cancel it," said Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in response to a question during a House Energy & Commerce Hearing. "I don't know the reason, but we were told to cancel it."

Fauci later told POLITICO that the White House ordered NIH to cut the research grant to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance.