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Phase I $8,411,546
Phase II $5,797,699
Total: $14,209,245
RESULT
The DEFUSE proposed project by EHA was rejected by DARPA, although “if funding became
available”, certain components of particular interest could have gone ahead, subject to a clear
contractual Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) risk mitigation plan that ‘includes a
responsible communications plan’.
The Biological Technologies Office of DARPA reviewed the EcoHealth Alliance DEFUSE
proposal and the Evaluation Reports and decided it was “selectable”. In doing so, two out of
three reviewers considered the aim of preempting “zoonotic spillover through reduction of viral
shedding in the bat caves” as of interest to DARPA. These reviewers assessed the EHA and
Collaborators team and concluded that:
However, the Biological Technologies Office did not recommend it be funded at that time
because significant weaknesses were identified:
2. However the proposal does not mention or assess potential risks of Gain of Function
(GoF) research.
3. Nor does the proposal mention or assess Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC)
issues, and thus fails to present a DURC risk mitigation plan.
4. The proposal hardly addresses or discusses ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI).
5. The proposal fails to discuss problems with the proposed vaccine delivery systems
caused by the known issues of variability in vaccine dosage.
6. The proposal did not provide sufficient information about how EHA would use any data
obtained and how they would model development or perform any necessary statistical
analysis.
7. The proposal did not explain clearly how EHA will take advantage of their previous work,
nor how that previous work could be extended.
8. The proposal failed to clearly assess how it would deploy and validate the “TA2
preemption methods” in the wild. This refers to carrying out experiments with effective
immune boosting molecules and delivery techniques via FEA aerosolization mechanism
at one test and. two control bat cave sites in Yunnan, China (PARC, EHA, WIV).
9. The proposal does not address concerns about these vaccines not being able to protect
against the wide variety of coronaviruses in bat caves which are constantly evolving, due
to insufficient epitope coverage.
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DRASTIC independently assesses that the tone of the proposal (see for instance the ‘our cave
complex’) and the deep suggested involvement of some of the WIV parties (Shi Zheng Li
employed half-time for 3 years - paid via the grant - and invited to DARPA headquarters at
Arlington), may not have helped either - especially in the absence of any DURC risk mitigation
program.
It is clear that the proposed DEFUSE project led by Peter Daszak could have put local
communities at risk by failing to consider the following issues:
- Gain of Function
- Dual Use Research of Concern
- Vaccine epitope coverage
- Regulatory requirements
- ELSI (ethical, legal, and social issues)
- Data Usage
END
Rejection Letter - Findings p. 2/2