In 2014, after a series of accidents involving mishandled pathogens at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the NIH announced that it would stop funding gain-of-function research into certain viruses — including influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) — that have the potential to unleash a pandemic or epidemic if they escaped from the lab. Some researchers said the broad ban threatened necessary flu-surveillance and vaccine research.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00210-5
Researching and experimentation on these viruses were too restrictive in the US, so Fauci outsourced it to China.
What legitimate, good, or beneficial purpose was served by such “research”?