Illegal California medical warehouse investigated for housing possible pathogens, allegedly connected to Chinese company
- Officials in Reedley, California, found what appeared to be a ‘laboratory operation on site, storage and use of biological material’
- Several local news outlets have reported that warehouse owner Prestige Biotech is a Chinese company, but investigators have not confirmed that
Local and federal agencies have conducted a months-long investigation into an illegal medical warehouse in central California that allegedly housed potential pathogens and was run by a company with links to China.
City officials in Reedley, in Fresno county, said that during a regular inspection of the building in March, they found what appeared to be a “laboratory operation on site, storage and use of biological material, and experimentation on laboratory mice”, and contacted the county’s health department, the state’s Department of Public Health, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Documents filed with the Superior Court of California in Fresno by the county health department between March and July describe the site as “constituting a public nuisance”, seeking permissions to enter the site to “abate the source of communicable diseases, infectious agents, and other biological material”.
Fresno county’s health department backs the request, adding that during a second inspection in March, state health officials “documented embargoed medical devices, e.g. Covid tests and pregnancy tests, believed to be developed on site”.
Moreover, the county agency said, local health officials “observed blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples; serums; and thousands of vials of unlabeled fluids and suspected biological material” on the site.