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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has suspended federal grants issued to EcoHealth Alliance, the infectious disease research group caught up in a controversy over its work in China, and plans to bar it from receiving future funding.

The Health and Human Services Department dispatched its decision in a letter Tuesday, two weeks after House lawmakers grilled EcoHealth President Peter Daszak on the nonprofit’s research, oversight, and safety measures, particularly its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and contentious infectious disease studies known as gain-of-function research.

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Daszak denied that the group ever conducted gain-of-function work, in which the risk posed by a pathogen is potentially increased by techniques such as adding or removing genes. However Republicans and Democrats alike criticized EcoHealth in separate reports for failing or delaying to report high-risk studies. In particular, documents show EcoHealth did not submit its 2019 annual report to federal officials for nearly two years; Daszak told the panel that the group had issues logging into the National Institutes of Health system.

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The Trump administration first pulled EcoHealth’s funding in early 2020 amid unproven theories that the virus causing Covid-19 had leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where EcoHealth had partnered with labs on coronavirus research in animals. Officials in May 2023 reinstituted EcoHealth’s funds, but that July, debarred the Wuhan Institute from U.S. taxpayer funding for 10 years.

In its letter suspending funding for EcoHealth once again, HHS cited information from 30 federal documents dating back to the NIH’s initial 2014 grant. One of the most recent documents refutes Daszak’s claim about the two-year report delay.

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The group was “never locked out of the system,” according to the letter.

The HHS office overseeing grant integrity approves more than 85% of officials’ recommendations for debarment. While bans generally last for about three years, “I may impose debarment for a longer period or shorter period as the circumstances warrant,” Henrietta Brisbon, a suspension and debarment official, said in the letter.

EcoHealth will be contesting the proposed debarment, a spokesperson said. “We disagree strongly with the decision and will present evidence to refute each of these allegations and to show that NIH’s continued support of EcoHealth Alliance is in the public interest.”

The House coronavirus committee’s EcoHealth probe is “far from over,” Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said in a statement. The nonprofit is still required to provide responses and additional documents to the panel following the hearing.

Republicans leading the Energy and Commerce Committee, where members have also probed Covid-19 origins and potential gain-of-function research limits, applauded the news but also said the decision was “long overdue.”

EcoHealth did not find much support among Democrats, either. Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), the top-ranking official on the House coronavirus committee, said he “welcome[s]” the HHS move.

Though Democrats also condemned EcoHealth’s lack of transparency, their May 1 report stopped short of recommending that HHS bar the group from future funding. Yet Ruiz and others were critical of Daszak during the hearing.