From the article [1] (quote at the end of the comment) you’ve linked, all the experts quoted from a variety of unaffiliated institutions and from both the U.S. and the UK call the pulling of funding political and baseless. Even the expert who supports the move only does so purely because of the optics.
But even setting aside all of that, it’s ridiculous that you think that there is any sort of equivalence between supporting a research institution that even if we grant for the sake of argument fucked up here, at worst the fuckup is defensible as seen by all the credible people defending it, and actually threatening and attacking people.
This is worse than saying “oh yeah, I’m against threats but you know, that guy got a parking ticket once” because a parking ticket isn’t least breaking some rules. Defending what at worst is an extremely reputable organization that made a filing mistake is not even close to getting a parking ticket.
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From [1]
> Lawrence Gostin, an expert on global health law at Georgetown University, says that although EcoHealth has 30 days to contest the suspension, he expects any such effort will fail.
“All in all, this has an unpleasant political smell behind it,” Gostin says, adding that he believes the move reflects “a political campaign to dissuade scientific cooperation with China.”
Virologist Stuart Neil of King’s College London says the alleged grant offenses are not “crimes, nor are they evidence of misuse of public money.” He calls the HHS action “performative political nonsense carried through by the cowardice of the ranking Democrat members [on] the select committee.”
Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher at Baylor College of Medicine, adds that “EcoHealth Alliance is one of the few organizations we have to track the emergence of new and dangerous virus pathogens. If they disappear, our national security suffers.”
But critics of EcoHealth applauded the decision. Filippa Lentzos, a biosecurity expert at King’s College London, says that although “there are a range of views” among virologists and other experts about EcoHealth’s alleged transgressions, “for me, an overriding concern is to have, and to be seen to have, a robust oversight system,” particularly for potentially risky research.