Sen. Tim Sheehy is seeking an HHS inspector general investigation into Rocky Mountain Laboratories after NIH disclosures and whistleblower allegations raised concerns about pathogen transport, lab safety incidents and internal reporting.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A federal infectious disease laboratory in Montana is facing renewed scrutiny from lawmakers after a whistleblower alleged serious misconduct involving pathogen handling, an alleged monkey bite and what was described as an internal effort to conceal safety problems at the facility.
Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., has asked Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General March Bell to immediately review “safety, security, and personnel practices at RML,” according to a request from his office. Rocky Mountain Laboratories, located in western Montana near the Idaho border, is a biosafety level 4 facility operated under the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and conducts research involving some of the world’s most dangerous pathogens, including Ebola.
The request follows a series of disclosures and allegations involving the lab, including the National Institutes of Health’s acknowledgment that RML recorded “theft, loss, or release of a pathogen” twice in the past year, according to Just the News. Sheehy warned that “even small lapses could put Montana communities at risk.”
“We don’t want Montana to be the next Wuhan,” Sheehy wrote on X, referring to the Chinese city associated with the early COVID-19 outbreak. The inspector general’s office did not respond to a request from Just the News about Sheehy’s letter.
The allegations entered the national political spotlight after Sheehy reacted on X to an interview by Laura Loomer with Justin Goodman of the White Coat Waste Project. The interview focused on what Goodman described as an “NIH cover up involving biological sabotage and Ebola infected monkeys in Montana,” based on an anonymous whistleblower letter received by the organization.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, also called for answers.
“This is very scary, and we need to find out what happened,” Scott said on X.
Goodman said White Coat Waste did not know the whistleblower’s identity. An HHS official, however, confirmed Loomer’s statement that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “personally confirmed to me” the legitimacy of the whistleblower’s allegations and had referred Virus Ecology Section Chief Vincent Munster to the FBI for possible prosecution.
A related X post also circulated as the allegations drew public attention.
The questions surrounding Munster expanded after former Senate pharmaceutical corruption investigator Paul Thacker reported May 5 that he had obtained emails circulating inside HHS about Munster and Claude Kwe Yinda, a scientist in Munster’s lab. Yinda’s contact information is no longer listed in the NIH directory. Both men were authors of an April paper in The Lancet Infectious Diseases concerning monkeypox circulating outside Africa.
According to Thacker, Munster and Yinda were placed on leave after an airport inspection allegedly found “pathogen samples collected from patients” in their luggage following a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The materials allegedly included monkeypox samples and lacked the paperwork required for lawful transport. Thacker cautioned that the pathogens “may have been inactivated by reagents.” The FBI declined to comment when Thacker asked about the reported investigation.
The whistleblower letter claimed that Munster and others who returned from the trip were “allowed to come and go as they pleased” at RML after the incident. The letter alleged, “The NIH powers did not inform the RML campus and went into full cover-up mode,” placing responsibility on NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland.
NIH confirmed RML incidents but did not initially disclose that one allegedly involved an employee being bitten by a lab-infected monkey, Goodman previously told Just the News. Goodman said that alleged omission prompted the whistleblower to contact White Coat Waste.
Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., previously told Just the News that the allegations point to continuing problems in federally backed research settings.
“Secretive monkey lab accidents and virus smuggling scandals sound like something ripped straight from Anthony Fauci’s playbook, yet somehow this dangerous madness is still happening,” Gosar said, referring to the former NIAID director, who is now a distinguished professor at Georgetown University.
White Coat Waste also highlighted the matter in a separate X post.
The controversy has revived earlier concerns about RML’s research portfolio and its connections to coronavirus research debates. The Montana lab has drawn attention for its potential role as a “partner” in the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s 2018 DEFUSE project, which proposed creating a chimeric coronavirus.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who chairs the Senate homeland security committee, examined Munster’s connection to DEFUSE in a 2024 probe. Paul said Munster’s involvement appeared to conflict with Fauci’s testimony that NIH was not aware of the project.
White Coat Waste said it previously worked with Congress in an effort to cut Munster’s salary to $1 and has continued campaigns aimed at defunding animal laboratories connected to his work, including billboards criticizing experiments involving bats and primates.
RML also came under scrutiny for obtaining bats from a low-rated zoo near Camp David for coronavirus experiments involving a virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The lab also collaborated with Colorado State University on an NIH-funded bat lab whose biosafety committee documented more than 60 lab accidents between 2020 and 2023.
Another figure connected to DEFUSE, University of North Carolina virologist Ralph Baric, is retiring from UNC while facing separate federal action. NIH removed Baric from his grants and began debarment proceedings, citing an apparent “pattern of deception” involving the nature of his research, whether it was gain-of-function work and who funded it, according to a May 7 letter Baric shared with Science. Baric said he would appeal the debarment, “likely with legal help from the school.”
Thacker first reported that Baric had been removed from his grants and that UNC had placed him on leave. NIH’s May 7 letter said the agency told UNC in April 2025 that Baric’s salary “would be restricted” on his grants pending a compliance review. Six weeks later, UNC said Baric was on “extended leave with no end date,” according to the NIH letter. Science reported that UNC placed him on leave again after receiving the May 7 letter.
In his request for an inspector general investigation, Sheehy also cited HHS’s January acknowledgment to Just the News that an RML employee was “potentially exposed” to Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever after an accidental breach of personal protective equipment in November. Sheehy’s letter referred to Munster as “foreign-educated.”
The November incident was first indicated by a brief notation in minutes from an NIH Institutional Biosafety Committee meeting obtained by White Coat Waste. RML later told the Ravalli Republic in February that the employee “remained well” and had “been back at work for some time.”
NIH later provided additional information after questions were raised about a second incident involving Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a highly fatal virus. That second incident was described in the biosafety committee’s Feb. 19 meeting minutes.
NIH told the Ravalli Republic that the Nov. 13 worker was “highly experienced,” “followed all established procedures,” was “immediately decontaminated, isolated and evaluated” and was then “transferred to the nearest Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center.” NIH did not mention an alleged monkey bite in that account.
The agency said the Feb. 18 incident occurred “due to a hole in a glove that occurred while changing cages of laboratory mice.” NIH said “reporting, emergency response, and safety protocols were followed,” and that there was “no release outside of the lab” and no risk to the public.
The whistleblower letter, published in image form by White Coat Waste, included harsh personal accusations against Munster and others. The letter described Munster as a “Fauci acolyte and all around egotistical, arrogant, foreigner” who helped Baric “weaponize” COVID. It also referred to a co-researcher as a “condescending, America-hating foreigner” and another person as a “new minion,” although White Coat Waste redacted names from the public version.
The letter alleged that customs agents in Detroit found “dozens of vials in [Munster’s] baggage” when the group returned Jan. 25. According to the whistleblower, Munster told customs officials the vials contained “science stuff” and “reagents,” but later told RML “biosurety” staff they were “DNA samples.”
The whistleblower further claimed NIH’s description of the equipment breach “is likely a diversion (dumbed down and misleading although true) for the fact that three foreign nationals with TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome] who hate America and worked to weaponize the Covid virus got caught trying to sneak VHF [viral hemorrhagic fever] samples into the United States from Africa.”
The letter also accused specific NIH and RML officials of being in “full coverup mode,” though White Coat Waste blacked out their names before releasing the images publicly.
Sheehy’s demand for an HHS inspector general review now puts the lab’s safety procedures, personnel oversight and pathogen-security practices under congressional pressure. The investigation request asks whether federal officials properly handled incidents involving dangerous pathogens, whether required reporting rules were followed and whether Montana residents were protected from avoidable risk.