"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
p.s. The US NIH did ultimately stop funding that research locally, but continued funding it in Wuhan. Including the exact type of virus we're dealing with now.