Reedley Chinese Communist Party-Linked Lab: One Year Later

It was exactly a year ago Saturday when officials with the City of Reedley executed a search warrant on what turned out to be a secret, Chinese Communist Party-linked laboratory in the middle of downtown.

In the past year, the owner of the lab has been arrested – he’s still in Fresno County jail facing federal charges.  The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has investigated the situation, the FBI has investigated, the FDA has investigated, Congress has investigated, and the CDC has investigated…kinda.

Even with all of that,  the city still has a half-million illegal covid and pregnancy tests they are waiting for someone to take off of their hands.

Reedley City Manager has high praise for some involved in the convoluted process, from the city code enforcement officer Jesalyn Harper, who discovered the lab to Congressman Jim Acosta, who rattled federal agency cages, but is deeply troubled by the actions – or inactions – of some of the other government agencies, specifically the Centers for Disease Control – the CDC.

“It’s been very disappointing,” Zieba said.  “I get the impression it has never been a high priority for them.”

In December, 2022, Harper noticed a garden hose going through a hole into a building that was supposed to be unoccupied.  When she went in, she found a number of people working in, let’s just say, not terribly clean conditions.

Over the course a few visits, Harper found dead and dying testing mice, genetically modified to mimic human reactions, barely operating freezers and other equipment holding vials and other containers labeled as containing HIV, Chlamydia, and malaria, amongst others.  She also found a refrigerator labeled “Ebola,” decaying equipment stored randomly in the warehouse, and tens of thousands of boxes of covid and pregnancy tests.

The city called the the Fresno County and the FBI. After two months, the FBI closed its investigation, saying it had not found weapons of mass destruction. In the meantime, the city had been desperately calling the CDC and other agencies to try to figure out what to do with the site even as employees, reportedly, kept feeding the mice (the garden hose was for the water) and boxing up covid tests for shipping.

The calls to the CDC were especially frustrating, Zieba said – in fact, she and Harper were actually hung up on at least once.  

But during this agency frustration, the city plugged along and finally obtained the warrant they needed to properly search the premises and that is what they did March 16, 2023.

The conditions they found had, if anything, become worse.  The mice were dying, chemicals were scattered randomly, and much of the electrical equipment housing the vials of purported diseases was running on jerry rigged power.  A state vet was called to handle the mice – those alive were euthanized – and then in April the county health people paid a visit themselves.

The California Department of Public Health showed up on May 1 and, finally, the CDC paid a visit. The CDC team took photos, wandered around, did not test any of the vials – even those marked “HIV” – and left.  

The CDC itself disputes the notion that it did not perform its job adequately:

“CDC refutes the charges that the agency did not respond to local requests for aid. Indeed, CDC has, and continues to be actively engaged, within its regulatory authorities, in the intergovernmental efforts to address issues surrounding the facility. At the request of state and local officials, CDC participated in approximately 40 calls with federal, state, and local partners to support the review of material in the Reedley building. 

After state and local officials notified CDC of concerns in March, the California Department of Public Health determined that no onsite assistance was needed from CDC. In April, the Department of Public Health requested on-site assistance. We promptly responded and sent a team to the site. CDC was onsite for two and a half days and conducted an extensive review. CDC’s role in this review was limited to the parameters established by the county and state officials who requested assistance, and at whose invitation CDC was present.”

In November, new CDC director Mandy Cohen testified before Congress, saying roughly the same thing each of the three times she was asked about Reedley:

“When asked, we deployed and the congressional report contained a number of inaccuracies.”

The entire congressional report, which actually contains very few if any inaccuracies, can be found here:  scc-reedley-report-11.15.pdf (house.gov)

Cohen said they found no “select agents,” (those are really nasty things; here’s the list – note Ebola is on the list though the CDC claims they were unaware of the refrigerator sign) but admitted they did not test anything, basically because it’s not what they do.

Cohen added – astonishingly – that the CDC was less concerned about the lab because it had no proper lab equipment like safety hoods (the fanned glass cabinets you may remember from science class.)

That bears repeating: Cohen said they were less worried about the secret lab because it didn’t look like a regular proper safe normal lab.

Maybe not surprising; Cohen, when she was North Carolina state health director during the pandemic, would chat like a high school kid with other officials about what the public should be allowed to do:

As NC health director, Dr. Mandy Cohen felt comfortable wielding dictatorial power. Here she laughs about consulting w/her counterparts in other states: "When she was like, are you gonna let them have professional football? And I was like, no. And she's like, OK, neither are we." pic.twitter.com/P0j3DvqiUN

— Sam Parker 🇺🇲 (@SamParkerSenate) March 5, 2024

That’s one of the nation’s top health officials – really.

At the November hearing, members of congress were taken aback by the CDC’s laissez faire attitude.

“Isn’t that (detecting threats) exactly what the CDC is for?” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) asked.

Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL) called the CDC response “inadequate and unprofessional” and expressed amazement that vials marked as containing nasty diseases like covid and Dengue went untested.

“The CDC is the first line of defense,” said an incredulous Dunn.

“The CDC has no understanding of the broader implications of the situation,” Zieba added.

And Zieba noted that the state –  which “continues to tell us it’s no big deal” – decided not to even call the CDC for weeks.  It turned out, since the CDC did little, not to matter much, luckily, but why the CDPH made that decision is unknown – the agency did not respond to requests for comment.

As the medical side of the investigation went forward, the financial side came under scrutiny.  

The owner – David He or Jesse Zhu, he’s booked into Fresno jail as He (pronounced her) facing federal charges brought by the FDA of one count of lying to federal officials and two counts of mislabeling medical devices.  – turned out to have not just a shady past but a pitch black past.  

A purported dairy expert, He went to Canada from China where he stole bovine genetic testing research and ended up on the wrong end of civil judgement of more than $300 million dollars.

After fleeing Canada, the Chinese native set up shop in Fresno to import things like dodgy pregnancy tests from China, slap a “Made in the USA” label and re-sell them.

And, menacingly, He was/is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s “Military-Civil Fusion” program, and received millions in suspicious dollars from China while stealing American bio-technology, selling unlicensed pregnancy and COVID tests, and squirreling away thousands of vials of deadly pathogens. For a more detailed breakdown of the CCP ties, see here.

However, there may be a glimmer of hope on the horizon.  A spokesman for Rep. Costa said his office is continuing to work through the Reedley situation, is following up on the November, 2023 Congressional findings, and they will “very soon” be releasing a proposal to address the entire matter and, as Zieba said, the “broader implications” of the discovery of a CCP-linked secret lab stocked full of infectious agents.

For now, though, Zieba still has about a half million covid and pregnancy tests left at the site that’s she’s not quite sure what to do with. Mr. He’s lawyer Anthony Capozzi said they remain the property of He’s company and that any disposal of them would still have to go through him (being He.)

So I guess a swap meet’s out of the question…

For a look at the lab itself, you can check out this special video report by The Epoch Times:  https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/behind-a-secret-chinese-biolab-in-california-special-coverage-5597768