Chinese biolabs in USA – A (very) late response

Federal authorities were late to act on reports about an illegal biolab in California, according to a report by the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But there is more…

“The Reedley Report,” a bipartisan, 42-page document drafted by the Select Committee on the CCP, highlights a disconcerting revelation: The existence of unknown biolabs in the United States remains uncertain. The federal government’s tendency to overlook its shortcomings is evident, and there is scant evidence of the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the FBI, or the Federal Trade Commission investigating the failure that involved multiple agencies. Notably, California’s state government failed to detect the operation until an improper water release was discovered by a city inspector in Reedley, CA.

In 2021, the Biden administration swiftly dismantled border protections instituted by former President Donald Trump. In 2022, they took it a step further by scaling back successful FBI investigations into Chinese espionage. Lacking federal attention, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party took on the investigation. Led by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and assisted by Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA), the committee exerted pressure on the CDC to initiate an inquiry into the unsupervised disease laboratory. Here are the main findings:

• The illegal biolab was run by a PRC citizen who is a wanted fugitive from Canada with a $330 million Canadian dollar judgment against him for stealing American intellectual property.
• This PRC citizen was a top official at a PRC-state-controlled company and had links to military-civil fusion entities.
• The illegal biolab received millions of dollars in unexplained payments from PRC banks while running the illegal biolab.
• The illegal biolab contained thousands of samples of labeled, unlabeled, and encoded potential pathogens, including HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and Covid.
• The illegal biolab also contained a freezer labeled “Ebola,” which contained unlabeled, sealed silver bags consistent with how the lab stored high risk biological materials. Ebola is a Select Agent with a lethality rate between 25-90%.
• The biolab contained nearly a thousand transgenic mice, genetically engineered to mimic the human immune system. Lab workers said that the mice were designed “to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus.”
• After local officials who discovered the lab sought help from the CDC and others, the CDC refused to test any of the samples. 

– Select Committee on the CCP