The anthrax lab-escape from Fort Detrick precipitated an explosion in bio-defense funding as well as Gain-of-Function research. There's a direct lineage to the type of research conducted by Western/Chinese scientists at WIV.

There were critics at the time - this Mother Jones article from 2004 is eerily prescient in terms of predicting the situation we find ourselves in today.

Mother Jones:(A) U.S. Army medical scientist in Maryland has been seeking to bring back to life key parts of the Spanish flu.

Ed Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project: If [the researcher] worked in a Chinese, Russian, or Iranian laboratory, his work might well be seen as the ‘smoking gun’ of a bio-warfare program.

MJ: With poor oversight, government-funded scientists could actually be paving the way for the next generation of killer germs—and given the explosion of research, there is no way to keep track of what is being done.

Ken Alibek, Soviet defector from bioweapons program: We are playing games with fire. It is kind of a Pandora’s box. As soon as you open it, there is no way of putting it back in.

The whole article is fascinating if you have a chance to read.