U.S. researchers – including those advising the federal government on COVID-19 vaccination policy and those funded by the National Institutes of Health – attended a Chinese Communist Party virology conference featuring scientists from China's military and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The Ninth Wuhan International Symposium on Modern Virology, which took place September 26th to 28th, was hosted by the State Key Laboratory of Virology at Wuhan University. Among its speakers were several Chinese Communist Party apparatchiks including Director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention George Gao and the Wuhan Institute of Virology's "Bat Lady" Shi Zhengli.

Shi, whose controversial work focuses on the manipulation of bat coronaviruses for human infection, delivered an opening keynote address at the conference on "the impact of 2019 new coronavirus mutation on virus pathogenicity and immune escape." Seven additional speakers at the conference were from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, believed by many to be the source of COVID-19.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology's scientific journal, Virologica Sinica, was also a sponsor of the conference.

In addition to a heavy Chinese Communist Party presence, American researchers, including those working for the federal government, were also in attendance.

Stanley Perlman, who serves on the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), which is charged with advising the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the approval of COVID-19 vaccines, attended the conference and delivered a presentation entitled "Animal Models of COVID-19."

Perlman, who has advocated for the authorization of COVID-19 booster shots, also serves on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) committee tasked with planning COVID-19 vaccine allocation.