Investigation Uncovers Chinese Military Links in VA-Funded Medical Research

By Li Xin, Vision Times

A probe into U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs-funded research has identified dozens of medical studies involving researchers affiliated with Chinese institutions, including universities and laboratories linked to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), raising new concerns over the security and privacy of American veterans’ genetic and medical data.

The review identified 61 original research papers that received VA support and involved collaborations with Chinese institutions or researchers with ties to China’s military establishment. Among the most significant is the VA’s Million Veteran Program (MVP), a massive research initiative that has collected genetic, health, lifestyle and military-exposure information from more than 1 million U.S. veterans.

The program has received approximately $676.5 million in registered funding, according to the investigation. Two genomic studies published in 2023 using MVP data involved approximately 174,000 and 462,000 veterans, respectively. One of the listed authors was affiliated with the Beijing Institute of Genomics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China National Center for Bioinformation.

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‘Brain-control weaponry’

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The investigation also identified other collaborations involving institutions with more direct ties to the Chinese military. A colonoscopy clinical trial involving 480 U.S. veterans listed a researcher from China’s Fourth Military Medical University, now known as Air Force Medical University, as a co-author. The paper did not specify whether the researcher had access to patient-level medical records.

Another brain and spinal-cord imaging study acknowledged both VA funding and support from a foundation associated with the former Jinan Military Region General Hospital. Among its co-authors was a researcher affiliated with China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, an institution later placed on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List.

The Commerce Department added the academy and several of its institutes to the list in 2021, claiming the entities had used biotechnology to support Chinese military applications and other human-rights abuses, including purported “brain-control weaponry.”

Other research reviewed by the investigation included work on genetically-modified Cryptococcus fungi involving researchers from hospitals affiliated with China’s Naval Medical University and PLA General Hospital. Researchers at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center in Georgia also published multiple kidney-disease studies with scientists from the former Second Military Medical University, now Naval Medical University, between 2015 and 2024.

Tightening restrictions on sensitive data

Analysts note that available records do not indicate that VA funding was transferred directly to Chinese collaborators or that they received unrestricted access to veterans’ raw medical or genomic data. Still, the documented research ties are drawing attention as Washington increasingly treats foreign access to Americans’ health and genetic information as a national security concern.

The U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center has further warned that foreign access to genomic and health information could potentially be used to identify vulnerabilities among government and private-sector personnel or accelerate advances in areas including artificial intelligence and precision medicine.

In April 2025, the Justice Department implemented its “Data Security Program” in hopes of restricting certain transactions that could provide countries of concern, including China, access to bulk genomic, health and other sensitive personal data involving Americans.