Lawmakers are demanding answers after it was revealed the US is sending taxpayer dollars to a Chinese army lab to make bird flu viruses more dangerous to people.

Eighteen members of Congress are demanding answers from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) about the project, which was first revealed by DailyMail.com.

It is part of a $1million collaboration between the USDA and the CCP-run Chinese Academy of Sciences - the institution that oversees the Wuhan lab at the center of the Covid lab-leak theory.

In a scathing letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack last week, the bipartisan group said: 'This research, funded by American taxpayers, could potentially generate dangerous new lab-created virus strains that threaten our national security and public health.'

The White Coat Waste Project obtained the above photo and claims it shows animal experimenters inside the USDA lab that is working with Chinese scientists on bird flu research

Tests revealed that an unknown number of cows have tested positive for bird flu Type A H5N1 in Texas, Kansas and New Mexico. Iowa is currently 'monitoring the situation' as it is also a dairy-heavy state. It comes after a goat in Minnesota tested positive last week. Bird flu has also been found in foxes, bobcats, striped skunks, raccoons and coyotes since the 2022 outbreak

The research comes as fears about bird flu rise. A farm worker in Texas caught the H5N1 strain that is racing through cattle across the US earlier this month, becoming only the second ever American to be diagnosed - and experts are bracing for more cases. 

In February, it was revealed the United States government was funneling $1million to China to see if scientists could make 'highly pathogenic avian influenza' more contagious to mammals using gain-of-function research. 

Government records showed the collaboration began in April 2021 and is scheduled to be funded through March 2026. The USDA previously told this website the project was applied for in 2019 and approved in 2020.

The research involves infecting ducks and geese with different strains of viruses to make them more infectious, and studying the viruses' potential to 'jump into mammalian hosts,' according to research documents obtained by the watchdog group White Coat Waste Project and shared exclusively with this website.

It is being funded through the USDA and the main collaborators on the project are USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute - a Wuhan lab partner.

And it has been ongoing despite similar research being restricted in 2022 and growing concerns that dubious Chinese studies may have started the Covid pandemic.

The project is part of a $1million collaboration between the USDA and the CCP-run Chinese Academy of Sciences (pictured)

Photos inside the Chinese Academy of Sciences - the institution that oversees the Wuhan lab at the center of the Covid lab-leak theory

The bird flu project is part of a $1million collaboration between the USDA and the CCP-run lab

Just yesterday, President Joe Biden's administration announced it will work with 50 countries to identify and respond to infectious diseases, with the goal of preventing a pandemic that the US' own research could actually spark. 

Last week's letter was spearheaded by Rep Nick Langworthy, a Republican from New York who serves on the House Agriculture Committee. 

It states: 'We are disturbed by recent reports about the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on bird flu research.'

The CAS is the parent organization of WIV and has previously been prohibited from receiving US government money for 'blatantly violating grant and biosafety policies, refusing to share lab notebooks and other data, and otherwise obstructing investigations into the likely role of the lab's risky coronavirus [gain of function] research in the origin of Covid-19.'

The letter continued: 'Recognizing the problematic behavior of CAS, our House and Senate colleagues have called for sanctions against CAS and its affiliates and for taxpayer funding to be cut for all research involving CAS.'

White House's secret bird flu scare 

The patient is only the second-ever American to be diagnosed with H5N1, but the virus is spreading among cattle in multiple US states after jumping from birds. 

The signatories then requested written answers to seven questions inquiring about the potential of the research to increase transmissibility of bird flu viruses, details about specific experiments being performed, the biosafety levels of the experiments, what oversight the USDA is providing over CAS and if the FBI performed a safety risk assessment on the collaboration - and, if so, what those results were. 

Bird flu is of particular concern right now because a farmer in Texas recently contracted the H5N1 strain of the virus.

The patient caught the bird flu from an infected cow, which was the first time the strain had been found in cattle. 

They are only the second person to contract H5N1 after someone in Colorado caught the virus in 2022. 

While there is no sign of person-to-person spread — a development that would signal the start of a human epidemic — experts say the ease with which the strain is jumping between species raises the risk of it evolving to infect people more easily. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report a 'low' public health risk. 

The virus, however, is widespread in wild birds, with sporadic infections in poultry and mammals. 

Experts have previously told DailyMail.com H5N1 has the potential to spark a new pandemic.

Dr Aaron Glatt, an infectious diseases expert at Mount Sinai in New York, warned: 'It is absolutely true that H5N1 has the potential to cause a pandemic.

'People who work with these animals do need to be careful.

'The more that this virus is spread, the more likely it is that it could become a strain that could mutate and start to spread from human-to-human.'

The H5N1 spreading across the world emerged in 2020 after a bird was infected with both a bird flu from domestic poultry and a virus from wild birds.

During the infection, the two viruses met in the same cell and swapped genes — in a process scientifically termed re-assortment — to create the new virus that now had multiple attributes that made it better at infecting bird cells.

It quickly spread globally, with the first cases identified in Europe — before infections were also detected in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. 

The above shows a caged chicken that the The White Coat Waste Project claims is from inside the USDA lab that is working with Chinese government scientists on bird flu research 

The above shows a caged chicken that the The White Coat Waste Project claims is from inside the USDA lab that is working with Chinese government scientists on bird flu research

This month's letter is not the first written to the USDA from lawmakers. 

Following February's investigation, Republican Sen Joni Ernst of Iowa wrote a letter to Sec Vilsack seeking more information about the department's ongoing funding of the research. 

The letter read: 'I was troubled to learn from the non-profit group White Coat Waste Project that USDA is supporting experiments involving a "highly pathogenic avian influenza virus" that poses a "risk to both animals and humans."'

Sen Ernst said in a statement to DailyMail.com at the time: 'The health and safety of Americans are too important to just wing it, and Biden’s USDA should have had more apprehension before sending any taxpayer dollars to collaborate with [China] on risky avian flu research. 

'They should know by now to suspect "fowl" play when it comes to researchers who have ties to the dangerous Wuhan Lab, and simply switching from bats to birds causes concern that they are creating more pathogens of pandemic potential. 

'Here’s my warning: the Biden administration should be walking on eggshells until they cut off every cent going to our adversaries. We cannot allow what happened in Wuhan to happen again.'

The specific viruses the research said it will study include H5NX, H7N9 and H9N2, WCW reported.

Rep. Nicholas Langworthy (R-NY) speaks with reporters as he walks to House Republican Conference meeting at the US Capitol Building on July 18, 2023

A 2023 study described H5NX viruses as 'highly pathogenic' with the ability to cause neurological complications in humans.

The H7N9 strain first infected humans and animals in China in March 2013 and the World Health Organization said it is of concern 'because most patients have become severely ill.'

The H9N2 strain has been found in doves in China and while it has a lower pathogenicity than the other strains, it can still infect humans.

Despite the concerns, a USDA spokesperson told this website it is 'common for international researchers to conduct independent research that's connected to the same end goal' and that the research does not qualify as gain-of-function.