President Donald Trump’s executive order strengthening restrictions on gain-of-function research is a sensible step in his administration’s crusade for sanity. Signed Monday evening, the order seeks to clamp down on the risky research that modifies pathogens or toxins to enhance their ability to cause disease or spread more easily, which most authorities believe caused the COVID-19 pandemic. 

A White House fact sheet claims the new order “empowers American research agencies to identify and end federal funding of other biological research that could pose a threat to American public health, public safety, or national security.”