A recent audit of Pentagon funding of gain-of-function research outside the US "may have shielded" collaborations with Chinese biotech firms " including at least one linked to Beijing's military, a Republican senator alleged. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) pressed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for answers about redactions that had concealed the firms " WuXi AppTec, Pharmaron Beijing Co., and Genscript Inc. " from public scrutiny in the audit, according to a letter. "American taxpayers deserve transparency about the programs they are funding, and I am disappointed this OIG report does not provide that accountability," Marshall wrote. According to the Defense Department Office of Inspector General audit, more than $15.5 million in grants between 2014 and 2023 flowed through subrecipients to "contracting research organization[s] in China or other foreign countries for research related to potential enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential." However, the 20-page audit cited "significant limitations with the adequacy of data" " and said the Pentagon "did not track funding at the level of detail necessary to determine whether the DoD provided funding ... for the gain-of-function experiments. Such research is classified as "offensive biological work" by the Pentagon, which Marshall said "raises questions" about National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials having admitted this year to funding gain-of-function experiments at the ... Wuhan Institute of Virology.