Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted Jesse Zhu, Quing He, and David He in connection with the companies Universal Meditech Incorporated (UMI) and Prestige Biotech Incorporated (PBI), which are linked to the Chinese Communist Party, who sold COVID-19 test kits from January 2020 through March 2023. The unlicensed lab also contained at least 20 high-risk infectious agents, including SARS-CoV-2, HIV, E. coli, Hepatitis B and C, Dengue virus, Malaria, Chlamydia, herpes, and Ebola, which has a lethality rate between 25-90 percent. A U.S. House committee investigating the illegal Chinese-owned facility determined that the biolab also genetically engineered nearly one thousand transgenic mice to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus. Now, multiple officials are questioning why the FBI and U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ignored warnings about the facility. "It reads like a movie script and a horror movie script, when you detail all of those things that were missed," Rep. Ashley Hinson, a Republican from Iowa, said during a recent interview. "We want to know how he was able to obtain these pathogens,” she said, referencing Zhu. “How is he able to get away with running a lab, getting millions of dollars sent to him from the Chinese Communist Party and then obviously coming into our country stealing American intellectual property?" If convicted, Zhu — who entered the U.S. illegally and was subject to a Canadian arrest warrant — faces between 3-5 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines. "The FBI and the CDC really dropped the ball here in terms of investigating not only this illegal lab, but now we wonder how many more labs like this exist in the country," Hinson said. "So clearly, we have some work to do to make sure we're prepared, because we know China is doing everything they can to constantly undermine us." Congressman Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) also drew attention to the lack of investigation by federal officials, which could have had catastrophic consequences for the U.S. just three years after the country was crippled by the response to the COVID pandemic. The Reedley Biolab was discovered in a warehouse located at 850 I Street in Reedley, California. It was across the street from a residential neighborhood, next to a railway line, and close to the town’s high school, city hall, and water supply. As detailed in the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party report, a code enforcement officer named Jesalyn Harper identified a garden hose violation outside the warehouse in December 2022. After being let inside the facility, Harper observed three women who identified themselves as Chinese nationals. She also observed samples of dangerous pathogens and biohazard signs. Harper referred the matter to county officials and the FBI. Two months later, the FBI informed her that it had closed its investigation, believing there was no threat posed by the facility. Local officials also reached out to the CDC for assistance. However, CDC officials refused to speak with them, and on a number of occasions hung up on them mid-conversation. After local officials returned to and raided the facility, the CDC refused to test the samples. The committee report said:Federal officials are facing harsh criticism after ignoring warnings about a Chinese national operating an illegal biolab with deadly pathogens at an unsecured facility in a California city.
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The CDC’s response was inadequate and raises serious questions about its standard practices. It is unacceptable that the CDC, according to accounts of local officials, refused to take a phone call from city and county officials concerned about a biolab found in their region. Even if the CDC normally works through state agencies, it could have given the necessary contact information to local officials. It should not require a Member of Congress–in this case, Congressman Jim Costa–to personally call the CDC or any other federal agency for them to provide meaningful support. 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 3pathogens. Despite the probability that the unlabeled or coded vials contained additional unknown and dangerous pathogens, CDC officials refused to take any further investigative steps. The fact that they seemingly took the word of biolab operators and noted fraudsters and concluded that the named labels are wholly correct is also strange.
