Viruses such as ‘HIV’ and ‘Ebola’ found inside hidden, illegal Chinese-owned biolab in California
A House committee report on Wednesday revealed that a California biolab, owned by a Chinese entity, contained numerous vials of biological substances, with some labeled "HIV," and a freezer marked "Ebola." Initially, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI declined to investigate.
In Reedley, California, an illicit laboratory was in operation, and the potential threat to public safety became evident in December 2022. Jesalyn Harper, a vigilant code enforcement officer, discovered this when she noticed a green garden hose protruding from a hole in the side of a warehouse that had been assumed to be empty for over a decade.
Upon entering, Harper found lab equipment, machines for manufacturing, super cold freezers for medical stuff, small mice in a lab, and containers marked in Mandarin, English, and a code no one can understand.
She also met some people in lab coats who said they were Chinese nationals.
After Harper found something unusual, the city launched a 9-month investigation. Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) got involved when the CDC and FBI weren't cooperative. The goal was to uncover the activities happening in that illegal lab.
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, in a 42-page report, shared the results of its investigation that began in September. The report outlined surprising discoveries and raised concerning questions about a Chinese-owned research lab in the United States.
“Local officials spent months repeatedly trying to obtain assistance from the CDC,” the report states, noting that “the CDC refused to speak with them and, on a number of occasions, it was reported by local officials that the CDC hung up on them mid-conversation.”
“Local officials were similarly unable to get any help from other federal agencies,” congressional investigators found, including the FBI, which informed local officials that “it had closed its investigation because the Bureau believed that there were no weapons of mass destruction on the property.”
With Costa's assistance, CDC folks eventually came to the Greeley biolab. They figured out there were at least 20 things that could make people sick, some of them really serious or deadly diseases.
The CDC found stuff like SARS-CoV-2, Chlamydia, HIV, E. coli, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Hepatitis B and C, Dengue virus, the Rubella virus, and Malaria.
Even though the city said they'd pay for it, the CDC wouldn't test the samples or check the vials that didn't have labels.
The report criticizes the CDC for not wanting to help at first and refusing to test the vials, calling it "unacceptable."
In July, local officials, following a court order, hired a hazardous waste company to destroy 140 tons of lab equipment and 440 gallons of medical and biological waste found at the site.
During this process, they discovered a freezer labeled "Ebola" that hadn't been noticed before. Ebola is a disease with a death rate ranging from 25% to 90% once contracted.
The report mentions that local officials and contractors found a freezer labeled "Ebola" with silver sealed bags inside, similar to how the Reedley Biolab operators stored sensitive biological materials, although the containers in the fridge weren't explicitly labeled "Ebola."
After notifying the CDC about their discovery, the agency responded by saying it didn't remember seeing the Ebola label. The report states that the fridge and its contents were destroyed without being tested.
According to the report, there are no photographs of the Ebola-labeled fridge. The investigation also revealed a complicated connection between the owner and founder of Reedley Biolab, Jiabei "Jesse" Zhu, and the Chinese Communist Party. Zhu served as a corporate officer in Chinese military-civil fusion organizations and private organizations affiliated with the Chinese government.
Zhu came into the US illegally, going through Canada, after getting hit with a $330 million Canadian court judgment in 2016. The judgment was because he ran companies involved in a big theft of American cattle-related ideas, says the report.
The court found that Zhu and his pals from the People's Republic of China (PRC) said some pretty worrying things as part of their plan. For example, when a co-conspirator talked about 'American imperialism,' Zhu said, 'the law is strong, but the outlaws are ten times stronger.'
In another case, Zhu said his fake activities would help 'defeat the American aggressor and wild ambitious wolf!' The report mentions private messages Zhu sent using the Chinese app WeChat.
After sneaking into the US, Zhu used the name "David He" and started working on creating a bunch of biotech companies, including the Greeley biolab.
"To start and manage many of these companies, Zhu got help from an accountant linked to groups connected to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)," say the investigators from the House.
The special committee discovered proof suggesting that Zhu and his crew at the Reedley biolab were buying fake COVID-19, pregnancy, ovulation, and nutritional deficiency test kits from China. They were then changing the labels and selling these knockoffs in the US as if they were genuinely "Made in the USA."
However, the sneaky plan they had didn't really make sense when it came to the weird stuff like pathogens, equipment, and freezers found in Zhu's lab, say the investigators from Congress.
The report points out, "There's almost no market for test kits that would check most of the germs the Reedley Biolab seemed to have, especially not kits made in a place that didn't have a license."
The report also says that Zhu got hit with federal charges for fraud and making false statements in an investigation led by the FDA.
The House team found that, except for Ebola, the labeled vials of supposed germs found at the Greeley biolab don't match what you'd expect in a bioweapons program.
The report warns that we don't know the health risks from the lab yet, and we might not ever know.
"At the least, the Reedley Biolab highlights how unlicensed and mysterious biolabs can be really dangerous for our country. At worst, this investigation showed big holes in our country's defenses and rules about harmful germs. It's a serious risk to our national security that someone could take advantage of later," says the report. "So, it's important for Congress and the Executive Branch to fix these problems now before it's too late."
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