Ok. I have spent a few days trying to see what went on with the US Government saying it wouldn't fund certain research, etc. And I ended up thinking what I thought when our discussion of that issue started: Rand Paul and the Republicans are being intellectually dishonest.
As far as I can tell, this quote from the discussion at
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285586/ describes the funding restriction:
New USG funding will not be released for gain-of-function research projects that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route. The research funding pause would not apply to characterization or testing of naturally occurring influenza, MERS, and SARS viruses, unless the tests are reasonably anticipated to increase transmissibility and/or pathogenicity.
The letter from the NIH to Congressman James Comer clearly indicates that the research it discusses was for the purpose of determining "...if spike proteins from naturally occurring coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model." It goes on to say that the instance of having mice infected with one bat coronavirus becoming sicker than those infected with another bat coronavirus was "...an unexpected result as opposed to something the researchers set out to do."
There is no "there" there with this crap. Sadly, it is yet another example of Republican demagoguery. Nobody in the NIH lied. Nobody in the NIH did anything corrupt. The test isn't whether or not increased pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route occurred. It's whether or not it would have reasonably been anticipated. The Republicans demagoguing this matter are completely ignoring that.
And I honestly don't know why. I don't know why it's so important to them to try to cast the NIH as corrupt when it is not.