News World

NGO Corrupted Science in Fight for $7.5 Million in Taxpayer Funds

A senior US health official pleaded guilty to conspiring against the United States for helping plant a scientific article dismissing COVID-19's lab leak theory to protect a research group linked to Wuhan.

Eleni Papadaki-Van Der Merwe Staff Writer

SEPTEMBER 1, 2026 AT 11:42 AM

David Morens, a high-ranking official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and close adviser to Anthony Fauci, admitted in court documents to coordinating with Peter Daszak, head of the NGO EcoHealth Alliance, to publish an article that would exonerate both the organisation and the Wuhan Institute of Virology from suspicion regarding the origins of the coronavirus, according to Felix Perrefort writing in Nius.

EcoHealth Alliance had spent years working alongside the Wuhan Institute of Virology researching bat coronaviruses under a project entitled Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence. The research, which included controversial gain-of-function experiments

Eleni Papadaki-Van Der Merwe

She was born in 1986 in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is the granddaughter of an immigrant from Crete who settled in the Greek community of Johannesburg (one of the largest in Africa). She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Political Science from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg and a master’s degree in Journalism from Rhodes University in Grahamstown. She began her career at English-language media outlets in Johannesburg, covering politics and economics, with a focus on issues related to migration and the diaspora. She moved to Athens in 2015 to “return to her roots,” initially to pursue graduate studies, and has remained there permanently. She is married to an Afrikaner; they have two children and live in the southern suburbs of Athens.