The policy will establish stricter oversight of certain life sciences research the government deems could pose significant risks to public health.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on July 28 unveiled a new policy that would end federal support for “dangerous gain-of-function research,” an experiment in which scientists genetically modify an organism to enhance its characteristics.
In a statement, HHS said the policy would prohibit federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function research conducted in the United States and abroad.
It would establish stricter oversight of certain life sciences research that the government deems could pose “significant risks” to public health, biosecurity, or national security. The policy would also restrict federal funding for research conducted in countries or institutions that lack sufficient biosafety and oversight standards, according to the department.
“The federal government has a duty to protect the American people—not fund research that could put them at risk,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the statement. “Today, we are ending federal support for dangerous gain-of-function research and replacing weak oversight with clear, enforceable safeguards.”
The policy followed President Donald Trump’s May 2025 executive order directing federal agencies to stop funding gain-of-function research in countries of concern, such as China and Iran, that lack research oversight.
According to a White House fact sheet, the order seeks to prevent federal funding from being used for foreign research that will likely cause another pandemic.
Trump’s order will halt U.S. research involving infectious pathogens and toxins until a safer and more enforceable policy can be implemented, the White House stated.
“Dangerous gain-of-function research on biological agents and pathogens has the potential to significantly endanger the lives of American citizens,” Trump said in his order. “If left unrestricted, its effects can include widespread mortality, an impaired public health system, disrupted American livelihoods, and diminished economic and national security.”
In December 2024, the Republican-led House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a 520-page report detailing findings from a two-year investigation indicating that the COVID-19 virus likely originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
The report found that the U.S. National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and that EcoHealth Alliance Inc. used U.S. taxpayer dollars to facilitate this research at the lab.
The committee said COVID-19 possesses biological characteristics not found in nature and that data indicates that all COVID-19 cases stemmed from a single introduction into humans. This differs from previous pandemics, where there were more spillover events.
The report said that in January 2021, the U.S. State Department published an unclassified fact sheet that says: “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness.”
Citing the fact sheet, the report stated that the Wuhan Institute of Virology “has a published record of conducting ‘gain-of-function’ research to engineer chimeric viruses.”
