Fresno County officials said a months-long search of a rural California warehouse filled with infectious agents, medical waste and hundreds of mice that were bioengineered “to catch and carry the novel coronavirus.” It is said that an illegal laboratory was discovered.
The Department of Health and Licensing said Monday that Prestige Biotech, a Chinese medical company registered in Nevada, operated an unlicensed facility in Reedley, Calif., a small city about 39 miles southeast of Fresno. bottom. Reedley City Manager Nicole Ziba said the company had a goal of becoming a diagnostics lab.
“They didn’t have a license to operate,” Ziva told USA TODAY. “The city had no idea they were operating under cover of night in this building.”
Ziva said the Fresno County Public Health Department announced in December 2022 that law enforcement officers had seen a garden hose attached to a building presumed to be vacant and without a valid operating license. We have started investigating the facility.
Further inspections in March revealed that the facility held various chemicals, suspected biological agents, body fluids, hundreds of lab mice and other lab supplies, according to court documents. Became.
County public health officials said they also found medical devices believed to have been developed in the field, including a COVID-19 test and a pregnancy test.
“It was a small rural town of 26,000 people, so it was pretty shocking to walk into what I thought was an empty building and find research supplies and a live white mouse,” Ziva said. .
After several attempts to contact Prestige Biotech, Fresno County officials accused the company of failing to proactively provide information and comply with orders, including providing a plan to dispose of hazardous materials and medical waste. are doing.
By July 7, Fresno County public health staff had completed biological decontamination of all materials found at the facility, according to court documents.
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CDC has detected at least 20 infectious agents
Zieva said authorities had to conduct another investigation into the warehouse over several weeks because it was on private property.
Zieva said federal, state and local agencies, including county health departments and the FBI, joined the investigation after authorities discovered people were working in the building. Authorities were then able to issue an inspection warrant in March.
“Certain rooms in the warehouse were found to contain several containers of liquid and various equipment,” court documents said. “Fresno County Public Health staff also observed thousands of vials containing blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples, serum, unlabeled bodily fluids and suspected biological material.”
Hundreds of rats were also found in the warehouse, deprived of food and water, and “housed in overcrowded cages in inappropriate conditions,” according to court documents. A Prestige Biotech official told the researchers that the mice were “genetically engineered to catch and carry the novel coronavirus,” the document added.
Under a mitigation warrant, the city seized the rats in April and euthanized 773 of them. Nearly 180 mice had already died, according to court documents.
About 30 freezers and refrigerators were found, some set to minus 80 degrees Celsius, Giva said, and authorities notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC detected at least 20 potential infectious agents, according to court documents.
“In the end, what we found were some viruses like HIV, COVID-19, chlamydia, rubella, malaria,” Ziva said.
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What is Prestige Biotech?
Prestige Biotech has been operating an unlicensed and unregulated lab since October 2022, according to court documents.
Emails between city officials and company president Yao Xuqing reveal that Prestige Biotech inherited assets from the now-defunct Universal Meditech (UMI). According to court documents, Prestige Biotech was a creditor of UMI and its successor.
The property was then moved from the Fresno property to the Reedley Warehouse, according to court documents.
Authorities were unable to find a California address associated with the company, other than UMI’s Fresno location. Court documents say the other addresses provided were either “empty offices or Chinese addresses that could not be verified.”
During the investigation, Ziva said the company reported that it was manufacturing COVID-19 tests and pregnancy tests with a “goal to become a diagnostic laboratory.”
