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WASHINGTON — House lawmakers late Tuesday voted to attach a U.S. ban on controversial infectious disease research to legislation that could ultimately fund federal health agencies like the National Institutes of Health.

The bill would bar any federal agencies from funding so-called gain-of-function research, which involves altering a pathogen to study its spread, potentially making it more transmissible or severe in the process.

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The spending bill already included a restriction on funding this research in any country determined to be a “foreign adversary,” including China. Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology studied gain-of-function in some viruses, fueling theories that the Covid-19 pathogen was a lab leak. Those theories have never definitively been proven.

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