Secret medical lab in California stored bioengineered mice laden with COVID

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...e/70502532007/

'Fairly shocking': Secret medical lab in California stored bioengineered mice laden with COVID
Thao Nguyen
Saleen Martin
USA TODAY

A months-long investigation into a rural California warehouse uncovered an illegal laboratory that was filled with infectious agents, medical waste and hundreds of mice bioengineered "to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus," according to Fresno County authorities.

Health and licensing said Monday that Prestige Biotech, a Chinese medical company registered in Nevada, was operating the unlicensed facility in Reedley, California — a small city about 24 miles southeast of Fresno. The company, according to Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba, had a goal of being a diagnostics lab.

"They never had a business license," Zieba told USA TODAY. "The city was completely unaware that they were in this building, operating under the cover of night."

The Fresno County Public Health Department launched its investigation into the facility in December 2022 after a code enforcement officer saw a garden hose attached to a building that was presumed to be vacant and had no active business license, Zieba said.

Further inspection in March revealed that the facility housed various chemicals, suspected biological materials, body fluids and hundreds of lab mice, among other lab supplies, according to court documents.

County public health officials said they also found medical devices that were believed to have been developed on-site, such as COVID and pregnancy tests.

"Being a small, rural town of 26,000 — walking into what we believed to be a vacant building and finding lab supplies, live white mice... was was fairly shocking," Zieba said.

Following several attempts to communicate with Prestige Biotech, Fresno County officials are accusing the company of not being forthcoming with information and failing to comply with orders, such as providing a plan for hazardous and medical waste disposal.

Fresno County Public Health staff completed biological abatement work of all the materials found in the facility by July 7, according to court documents.

CDC detected at least 20 infectious agents

Zieba said officials had to conduct a separate investigation into the warehouse for several weeks because it was private property.

After authorities discovered there were people working inside the building, Zieba said federal, state and local agencies joined the investigation, including the county health department and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Authorities were then able to serve an inspection warrant in March...

[Emily]

Secret biological lab uncovered in Reedley containing bioengineered COVID-19 mice

The lab, operating in virtual secrecy in a sleepy Fresno County farm town, featured a variety of viral and bacterial agents including COVID-19.
by Daniel Gligich
July 27, 2023
...

• That investigation led to an investigation by the Fresno County Department of Public Health that uncovered a secret biological lab, finding 36 freezers located in the building.
• The county found over 800 biological materials and chemicals on site, including blood, tissue and other bodily fluids, as well as thousands of unlabeled vials that contained fluids.
• Investigators found a room in the warehouse where COVID-19 and pregnancy tests were being produced.
• The county also discovered nearly 1,000 bioengineered mice. Wang Zhaolin, a representative of Prestige Biotech – the company operating the lab – told county investigators that the mice were genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus.
• With 178 mice found dead, the county euthanized the other 773 mice after being advised by a veterinarian.
• In May, the CDC inspected the warehouse and found bacterial and viral agents such as chlamydia, E. Coli, streptococcus pneumonia, hepatitis B and C, herpes 1 and 5, rubella and malaria.

...

https://sjvsun.com/news/fresno/secre...covid-19-mice/

[Emily]

Photos of What Was Stored Inside the Clandestine Reedley Bio Lab

Published
3 days ago on
August 3, 2023
By Edward Smith

On May 1, California Department of Public Health investigators inspected an illegal Reedley medical lab operated by Las Vegas-based Prestige Biotech.

Investigators wanted to see if the thousands of gallons of biological fluid, laboratory mice, vials containing blood, serum, and at least 20 different diseases kept at the lab were in compliance with the Medical Waste Management Act.

Diseases found there included malaria, HIV, SARS-CoV-2 — the disease that causes COVID-19 — tuberculosis, chlamydia, and E. coli, among others.
...

https://gvwire.com/2023/08/03/photos-of-what-was-stored-inside-the-clandestine-reedley-biolab/

[Emily]

Sars susceptible mice being developed in CA 6 years ago? hACE2 mice were not in production when the Sars2 was officially discovered less than 4 years ago. Scientists weren't doing that line of work anymore pre-pandemic - at least in the academic world. Jackson Lab had to restart the line from frozen sperm.
And check out that hose in the photo. Workers in lab coats were only seen entering and leaving the Reedley location at night.

Firm Linked to Illegal Reedley Lab Tries to Reopen Near Fresno Airport

Published
4 days ago on
August 2, 2023
By Edward Smith
...

Yao: Prestige Biotech Took Over Universal Meditech Operations

As the largest creditor to Universal Meditech, Yao said Prestige had taken over the company’s assets, including monoclonal antibodies and more than 1,000 mice Universal Meditech had been “cultivating” for more than six years. Yao valued the mice to be as much as $1 million because of the rarity and the time it took to get the mice to lab levels.

“These mice are very precious,” Yao said in an email. “They are a special purebred population that took six years to build up. It is of special significance in the study of immunology and oncology. The value of its biological assets is likely to be hundreds of thousands or even one million (dollars).”

Yao was in the midst of applying for a visa to come to the U.S., according to a March email, but the line for visas at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing “increased sharply.”

In emails, Yao insisted the mice needed to be cared for because of their value to creditors.
...
https://gvwire.com/2023/08/02/firm-l...resno-airport/

[Emily]

Strange that the company that supposedly presciently bred this sophisticated line of Sars susceptible lab mice 6 years ago got caught up in the recall.

UPDATE – February 8, 2023: The FDA is updating this Safety Communication to include Universal Meditech Inc. as an additional distributor of the unapproved Skippack Medical Lab SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test. These unapproved tests were separately distributed and were not included in the May 2022 communication.

Date Issued: May 10, 2022

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning people not to use the Skippack Medical Lab SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Colloidal Gold). This test is not authorized, cleared, or approved by the FDA for distribution or use in the United States. The FDA is concerned about the risk of false results when using this test because neither SML Distribution LLC, nor Universal Meditech Inc., has provided the FDA with adequate data to show the test works correctly.

On March 4, 2022, SML Distribution LLC issued a recall for the Skippack Medical Lab SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Colloidal Gold), and the FDA has identified this issue as a Class I recall, the most serious type of recall.

On November 28, 2022, Universal Meditech Inc. issued a recall for the Skippack Medical Lab SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Colloidal Gold), and the FDA has identified this issue as a Class I recall, the most serious type of the recall.

The FDA has not received reports of injuries or death associated with use of the Skippack Medical Lab SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Colloidal Gold)....
...
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/...-communication

[Emily]

Secret Reedley Lab: Emails reveal CA Dept. of Public Health told Fresno County officials to be quiet
by Mayra Franco
Wed, August 9th 2023, 12:38 AM CDT

REEDLEY, Calif. (FOX26) — New details emerge regarding the illegal lab in Reedley as the Fresno County Department of Public Health shared a detailed timeline of the investigation before the information came to light to the public.
...

During this entire discovery dating back to October of 2022, Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba says they did everything in their power to keep the public safe.

She brought forward details regarding the company saying it was kicked out of Canada, got kicked out of Texas, and came to California.

She says it got kicked out of Fresno, kicked out of Tulare, went back to Fresno, got kicked out again, and went to Reedley.

“This little David city took down Goliath with a green garden hose," Zieba said...

https://kmph.com/news/local/secret-reedley-lab-emails-reveal-ca-dept-of-public-health-told-fresno-county-officials-to-be-quiet

[Emily]

I read that the mice involved were not the ACE2 mice used in SARs research, but rather mice with human immune systems used to farm SARs antibodies that are part of test kits. Sorry I don't have the source for that anymore. It does seem that this practice is used to produce test kits in general. (Poor mice.)

Some of the city documents say they were told the mice were for research purposes, so it remains unclear to me as to what the mice were all about.

https://publicportal.fresno.courts.ca.gov/FRESNOPORTAL/Home/WorkspaceMode?p=0#OtherEvents

Here is a timeline from the local newspaper:

https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/illegal-reedley-lab/timeline-of-the-reedley-lab-and-the-companies-behind-it/

And more on the mysterious company that last owned the mice, etc. -

https://sjvsun.com/news/fresno/what-does-fresno-co-know-about-prestige-biotech-top-official-speaks-out/

There's still some pot-stirring about a possible China connection, but it's possible that Prestige Biotech is owned by a US based company:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230806054942/https://www.pi-global.com/medical.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20230324095745/https://pi-global.com/Market%20Development.html

[Emily]

Part of the McClatchy Media Network


Watch as Fresno County responds to federal subpoena in Reedley Lab case
By Eric Paul Zamora September 13, 2023 at 6:38 PM

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local...279310089.html

[Shiloh]

Source: https://freebeacon.com/national-secu...it-for-months/

An Illegal Chinese Biolab Containing Infectious Diseases Operated in California. The Feds Ignored It for Months.
Congressional probe warns of ‘profound threat’ to U.S. homeland
Adam Kredo
November 16, 2023

A biolab illicitly run by a Chinese national in California contained traces of coronavirus, HIV, malaria, and other infectious diseases, but federal authorities spent months ignoring pleas from local officials to shut the site down, according to a report from congressional investigators.

The lab was discovered in December 2022, when officers in Reedley, California, a rural town of 26,000 residents, accidentally stumbled on the nondescript warehouse. Once inside, "several individuals who identified themselves as PRC nationals'' were seen working "with thousands of vials of biological substances," according to a months-long investigation by the House Select Committee on China published Thursday and provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

The makeshift lab—run by a Chinese national—contained live mice and freezers filled with improperly stored "pathogens and other unknown biological and chemical substances." It was determined the lab was housing a witch’s brew of infectious diseases, including HIV, the coronavirus, "infectious parasites," and a storage area marked "Ebola." While local officials in Reedley contacted the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to report the findings, the federal government spent months ignoring the city’s pleas for assistance and only became involved after a member of Congress began applying pressure earlier this year.

The discovery of the lab, and the federal government’s slow response, "presents a grave national security risk that could be exploited in the future," according to the congressional committee’s findings. It is unknown if other unlicensed China-tied biolabs are operating in the United States and what types of diseases they could be experimenting with under unsafe conditions, congressional investigators said. If the pathogens discovered in the Reedley lab leaked, an untold number of Americans could have fallen ill.

Authorities determined the lab was run by Jiabei "Jesse" Zhu, a Chinese national who had "previously stolen millions of dollars of intellectual property from American companies and was part of an ongoing transnational criminal enterprise with ties to the PRC for which he was ultimately charged in federal court," according to the report.

During its months-long investigation into the matter, congressional investigators found the CDC ignored in-depth reports about the lab’s activities and then performed an inadequate review of the site.

The federal agency’s conduct prevented many of the substances found in the lab from being analyzed, and investigators do not know exactly what was being tested at the lab.

After local and state authorities discovered the lab and its contents, they reached out to the CDC beginning in March of this year.

"Local officials spent months repeatedly trying to obtain assistance from the CDC, both directly and through" the California Department of Public Health, investigators determined. "According to local officials, the CDC refused to speak with them and, on a number of occasions, it was reported by local officials that the CDC **** up on them mid-conversation."

Other federal agencies capable of handling biohazardous materials also ignored the city’s requests for assistance.

The CDC arrived at the site in May, after Rep. Jim Costa (D., Calif.), the city’s member of Congress, began applying pressure.

Once there, authorities discovered a host of lethal diseases, including "‘at least 20 potentially infectious agents,’ including HIV, Tuberculosis, and the deadliest known form of Malaria."

However, "CDC officials confirmed that the CDC made this list of pathogens based solely on the labels that were placed on samples," according to the report. "The CDC did not test these samples to assess whether the listed labels were correct or otherwise in a cipher that the workers used for a more dangerous pathogen." The CDC also did not test vials labeled "COVID."...

[Mary Wilson]

Nov 17, 2023 at 10:36 AM EST
By James Bickerton
US News Reporter

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said it "strongly disputes" criticism of the federal agency contained in a major new report, produced by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), concerning an alleged secret biolab in Reedley, California.

According to the report, thousands of vials containing potentially dangerous or unknown substances, including some labeled "Ebola" and "HIV," were uncovered during an inspection of what was initially thought to be a vacant warehouse. The facility was uncovered in December 2022 by Jesalyn Harper, a Reedley code enforcement official who spotted a green hose sticking out of the building, and then went in to investigate. Inside, Harper found an array of laboratory equipment, medical-grade freezers, mice for experiments and vials containing writing in English, Mandarin and an unknown code. Several individuals wearing lab coats were also discovered who claimed to be Chinese nationals.

In response to Harper's discovery, the city launched an investigation which eventually involved the California Department of Public Health, the federal Food and Drug Administration, the CDC and the FBI. ...

CDC experts identified a number of potentially infectious agents at the Reedley site, including chlamydia, HIV, Hepatitis B and C, malaria, SARS-CoV-2, Dengue virus and the rubella virus. However, according to the report, they refused to test a number of unlabeled vials, along with a fridge labeled "Ebola," which were destroyed before their exact content could be ascertained.

The House committee report branded the CDC's response "inadequate," claiming the agency initially refused to take a phone call from city and county officials.

It continued: "The CDC's refusal to test any samples is likewise baffling. The CDC observed in its own reporting that '[t]housands of vials had unclear labeling, coded labeling, or no identifications,' that biohazard signs were around many of these unlabeled vials, and that the labeled vials included Risk Group 2 and 3 pathogens.

"Despite the probability that the unlabeled or coded vials contained additional unknown and dangerous pathogens, CDC officials refused to take any further investigative steps." ...

https://www.newsweek.com/cdc-responds-claims-about-chinese-biolab-california-1844760