Busting Covert Chinese Bio-Lab in California: Legal Loopholes Could Speed the Spread of Viral Agents; Chinese-Owned Lab in California Shut Down After COVID-19 Found Wants a Return to Fresno, and other C-Virus related stories
Busting Covert Chinese Bio-Lab in California:
Legal loopholes could speed the spread of viral agents.
“This is unprecedented. We’ve never had a biological lab in the United States busted before.”
That was Jesalyn Harper, code enforcement officer in Reedley, California, in an interview with Katy Grimes of the California Globe. Grimes sought out Harper after Reedley officials discovered a covert biological lab run by a shady Chinese company. What local officials found there was also unprecedented.
White mice had been genetically engineered to catch and carry the Covid virus, the MidValley Times reported. The illegal lab harbored potentially infectious bacterial and viral agents including chlamydia, E. Coli, streptococcus pneumonia, hepatitis B and C, herpes 1 and 5, rubella, samples of malaria and “thousands of vials that contained unlabeled fluids.”
As Harper revealed, the original lab was in Fresno and operated by Universal Meditech, Inc. (UMI), licensed by the state of California on March 20, 2019. On March 24, 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Office of Business and Economic Development struck a tax credit allocation of $360,000 with UMI. CEO Zhaoyan Wang thanked Fresno’s Economic Development Corporation for “further assistance” with California tax credits.
UMI suffered a fire and faced bankruptcy, and in October, 2022, Prestige Biotech moved the operation to a warehouse in Reedley, a Fresno County town with a population of about 25,000.
Prestige Biotech owner Xiuqin Yao told Harper she lives in China and could only communicate by email. Harper was unable to establish who, exactly, owned the hundreds of mice found on the property. Not a single person would identify as the operator of the lab, and some claimed they were “friends of the owner.”
Grimes asked what kind of civil or criminal charges the lab operators faced. As Harper had also learned, privately funded research and development labs are not required to register with the government. That avoids the multiple permits required of those operating under state or federal grants. Someone in the state could have assisted the owners “to move from Fresno without licenses.” —>READ MORE HERE
Chinese-owned lab in California shut down after COVID-19 found wants a return to Fresno
The Chinese-owned medical lab in Reedley that inspectors shut down after finding COVID-19 and more than 20 other deadly viruses stored in refrigerators once operated legally in Fresno and recently has been planning to move back into a building near the airport.
Recent controversy over the mysterious operations has left plans for a Fresno return by Universal Meditech Inc. and Prestige Biotech Inc. up in the air. Officials with the city of Fresno want more information before approving occupancy in the space near Fresno Yosemite International Airport.
The city said in a statement that its planning department received two proposed operational plans – in March 2022 and June – for a new location at 3900 N. Blattella Lane, just north of the airport. The building has not received final inspections from the city, nor has it issued a permit for occupancy – both needed before the test kit operation could move in, the statement said. Test kit companies can use live viruses to check that their products actually work.
City Planning Director Jennifer Clark, in a letter sent Wednesday to building owner Ford Tetra Partners, noted that conflicting information in the two operational statements raises concerns and asks for more information. “This letter is to inform you that without owner authorization, list of hazardous materials, and appropriate local, state and/or federal … material handling permits,” the city cannot evaluate the operational statement, Clark wrote. “Therefore, the change in operational statement will not be approved.”
The city also provided a timeline of Universal Meditech’s time in Fresno, starting with city approval August 2018 to occupy leased space in an industrial building at 1320 E. Fortune Ave.
The Fresno Business Journal reported in February 2019 that Universal Meditech, then a three-year-old company, was operating in Tulare before relocating to Fresno, where it was manufacturing pregnancy, ovulation and menopause tests. The company later added coronavirus test kits to its portfolio drug the pandemic. —>READ MORE HERE
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