Late last month, Leah wrote about the bizarre and concerning discovery of an illegal bio lab -- apparently being secretly operated by Chinese nationals -- in California. According to the Washington Examiner, the laboratory "was operating secretly and unpermitted in Reedley, California, was dealing with at least 20 infectious agents, including HIV, hepatitis, and herpes, though lab workers claimed the lab was making only pregnancy tests and COVID-19 tests. Prestige Biotech, the Chinese company that took over Universal Meditech and set up shop at the warehouse in Reedley, had its COVID tests recalled earlier this year."
Despite apparently false rumors that the lab workers were seeking to weaponize diseases, multiple elements of the emerging story are disturbing, raising more questions. The Examiner piece, written by Zachary Faria, delves into several of them:
The lab was operating illegally, without a permit, in secrecy. It was being run by a Chinese company that is registered in Nevada. According to Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba, Universal Meditech or Prestige Biotech had also been “kicked out” of Canada and Texas before setting up its locations in Fresno, Reedley, and Tulare, another California city in which the company had operated from 2015-2019...The lab contained several infectious agents that appear to have nothing to do with COVID tests, along with 200 dead mice. None of this was permitted, and Prestige Biotech was not registered as a medical waste generator.
To top it off, it appears this illegitimate business received a sizable PPP loan during the COVID pandemic, which "was paid in April 2020 and April 2021, meaning that the second installment was paid after Prestige Biotech had moved its operations and the assets from Universal Meditech into the secret, illegal Reedley location," the story explains. It's hard to argue with any of this:
Given that we already know that China runs several secret police stations across the world to harass dissidents, which includes stations on U.S. soil, who is to say that there aren’t more illegal Chinese bio labs operating in the U.S.? Given that the COVID pandemic almost certainly started from a Chinese lab in Wuhan, the operation of a secret Chinese lab illegally dealing with infectious agents on U.S. soil should raise at least one red flag, shouldn’t it? And that’s before you get to other financial questions, such as how Prestige Biotech received PPP loans after relocating to Reedley.
Members of Congress are right to be asking tough questions, as California Congressman Kevin Kiley has been doing (though this appears to have aired before an alleged 'miscommunication' about the apparent "catch and carry" miscommunication was cleared up):
The secret, illegal, Chinese-run lab discovered in California is alarming. Veteran health officials say they've never seen anything like it.
— Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) August 12, 2023
Officials found 1,000 mice "genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus" along with E. coli, malaria, and other agents. pic.twitter.com/KpWzVj2AyE
Amazingly, ABC News' recent write-up of this revelation was framed as a scolding of 'conspiracy theorists,' running with a headline of, "An illicit, Chinese-owned lab fueled conspiracy theories. But officials say it posed no danger." The article is replete with a college professor warning against anti-Asian stereotypes, and a reassurance that the initial reports about weaponizing COVID was "likely" a miscommunication. So nothing to see here, conspiracy weirdos, the secret Chinese bio lab posed "no danger." But the very same article relays these details:
Jesalyn Harper, the only full-time code enforcement officer for the small, agricultural city of Reedley in California's Central Valley, was responding to a complaint about vehicles parked in the loading dock of a cold-storage warehouse when she noticed a foul smell and saw a garden hose snaking into the old building. A woman in a lab coat answered her knock, and behind her were two others in plastic gloves and blue surgical masks, packing pregnancy tests for shipping. Harper said they spoke broken English and told her they were from China. Walking through the lab, she found dozens of refrigerators and ultralow-temperature freezers hooked to illegal wiring; vials of blood and jars of urine in shelves and plastic containers; and about 1,000 white lab mice being kept in crowded, soiled containers...The women said the owner lived in China, provided a phone number and email address and asked her to leave...
During a March inspection of the lab in Reedley, a city of about 25,000 people some 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco, officials did find infectious agents in the refrigerators including E. coli, coronavirus, malaria, hepatitis B and C, dengue, chlamydia, human herpes, rubella and HIV...After company representatives stopped communicating with city and county officials, they got a court order to shut down the operation, euthanized the mice and cleaned the biological materials. Officials thought that would be the end of it.
I have no idea how those specifics align with other assertions made in the story, such as officials supposedly finding "no criminal activity at the medical lab...and no evidence of a threat to public health or national security." Running an illicit, illegal bio lab with a bunch of diseases doesn't constitute "criminal activity"? And we are confident this operation posed "no threat to public health" -- why, exactly? I'll leave you with Rep. Kiley weighing in on a phenomenon in California that undeniably poses a threat to public health and security:
Crime in San Francisco is so out-of-control that employees at the Federal Building are being told to stay home. The building is home to Nancy Pelosi's office, as well as the U.S. Departments of Labor and Health & Human Services.
— Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) August 13, 2023
HHS, which is headed by former CA Attorney General… pic.twitter.com/TYFUUvizKC
"Dozens of dealers routinely plant themselves on, next to or across the street from the property, operating in shifts as users smoke, snort or shoot up their recent purchases." Progress in action. The Newsom/DeSantis debate is going to be interesting. Relatedly, this twist is just perfect, given the failing governor's own stupid preening:
Newsom-DeSantis debate location: Of the three states offered by Newsom (GA, NV, NC) California law prohibits state travel to two of them (GA and NC). https://t.co/55iLA00w88 pic.twitter.com/6JetnuQu7m
— John Kartch (@johnkartch) August 14, 2023
