There was blood and other bodily fluids in Gatorade bottles labeled in Mandarin, samples of at least 20 potentially infectious agents including malaria, dengue fever, and COVID-19 — and a pungent odor from what turned out to be nearly 1,000 mice.

  • metallic_substance@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    To anyone who hasn’t read the article or watched the video yet: don’t bother. It makes a lot of assumptions and answers very little. Really poor journalism.

    • LordOfTheChia@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Really poor journalism

      It goes beyond that. They took news that broke 4.5 months ago:

      https://midvalleytimes.com/article/news/2023/07/25/investigation-on-reedley-building-uncovers-bio-health-hazards/

      Then they remove any and all mentions that the facility was manufacturing testing kits for COVID, HIV, and pregnancy tests (do a cntrl+F for test in the OP article). Now, without informing the users that testing kits were being manufactured, the presence of disease samples and rats sounds more nefarious.

      It would be like reporting that tons of fertilizer were found in a building, and not reporting that the facility belongs to a landscaping company.

      • breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Court documents confirm the CDC found potentially infectious agents at the location. These included both bacterial and viral agents, including: chlamydia, E. Coli, streptococcus pneumonia, hepatitis B and C, herpes 1 and 5 and rubella. The CDC also found samples of malaria.

        I don’t know. Sounds pretty nefarious to me. They were infecting mice and human tissues with who-knows-what and disposing of them illegally, including in municipal waste.

        Even producing tests in sketchy, illegal labs is pretty fucked up.

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      7 months ago

      I got as far as “Gatorade bottles labelled in Mandarin” in the summary to know that it’s shotty journalism lmao

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    7 months ago

    Isn’t this is pretty much what Russia accused the USA of doing in Ukraine?

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      7 months ago

      The Russian state isn’t exactly a reliable source of information about Ukraine or the US. They also claimed the Ukrainian government were Nazis.

    • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      This is old AF and the only thing really going on with this place is that the people running it were disgusting pigs who could care less about bio waste disposal regulations, this place needed to be shutdown because it was a public health threat.

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        7 months ago

        It never should have been active in the first place.

        I have to wonder who is in charge of monitoring medical supply orders entering from China, and who’s watching over businesses that have dozens of shell companies that are able to run bio weapons’ manufacturing on foreign soil?

        This is some scary shit.

        • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          It’s absolutely not a bio weapons lab. It’s a COVID test manufacturing facility, they had a horribly ran research facility that was not properly disposing of their bio waste that they used for their research. So basically they weren’t properly disposing of the COVID samples that they were using for their research for creating the COVID testing equipment that they were manufacturing. There is nothing scary about except corporate and foreign disregard for rules and regulations in something pertaining to public health, this company should be barred from operating in California and the greater US as well as other WHO sponsored nations.

          The story is months old and this is basically just clickbait for the conspiracy chucklefucks.

          • girlfreddy@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            It’s a COVID test manufacturing facility

            Unlicensed at the city, state and federal level. The 1000 mice were bioengineered to grow COVID antibodies but (the CDC also) found “infectious agents in the refrigerators including E. coli, coronavirus, malaria, hepatitis B and C, dengue, chlamydia, human herpes, rubella and HIV.” Source

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    7 months ago

    Okay, I read the article and it’s really left me with more questions, and with minimal indication that this is actually a Chinese government-run biolab in the US. I’d like more information before making a decision on that.

    • LordOfTheChia@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It’s because the article is withholding information* to “guide” the viewer towards conspiratorial explanations. Especially with lines like this:

      What China’s lab was targeting with so many dangerous pathogens remains a mystery

      Meanwhile, elsewhere, this was already answered:

      https://apnews.com/article/california-biolab-covid19-test-kits-china-arrest-3ee30af1548356e017276860ebb21f53

      The Chinese owner of an unauthorized central California lab that fueled conspiracy theories about China and biological weapons has been arrested on charges of not obtaining the proper permits to manufacture tests for COVID-19, pregnancy and HIV, and mislabeling some of the kits.

      Also note, the OP article is not originally from AOL. AOL is quoting another article from a “Scripps News”, practically in its entirety without any additional journalism on their part. If they had done any journalism, they would have found the AP article I linked with more info or the DoJ article on the charges that were brought up.

      Edit:

      This story broke in July 25, 2023:

      https://midvalleytimes.com/article/news/2023/07/25/investigation-on-reedley-building-uncovers-bio-health-hazards/

      investigators discovered that one room of the warehouse was used to produce COVID-19 and pregnancy tests

      * Note, the words “test” or “tests” do not appear anywhere in the OP article.

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        7 months ago

        The thing that really irritated me was the bit about “ooh, they’re using equipment from China, that proves it!” I mean, no shit? Find me a lab, an office, a home, anything manmade in the US that doesn’t have something made in China in it :/

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          7 months ago

          Even in doctors offices. I had researched and bought pulse oximeters a few years ago (mainly on ali express).

          You start to see the same designs with different branding as they’re made by only a very few companies in China.

          Since then I can recognize the same ones in use at every doctor appointment I’ve been at.

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      7 months ago

      Iirc, USA and China have labs in which they collaborate, in both nations. I’m wondering if this is one of those labs, and what exactly our governments are getting up to?

  • LordOfTheChia@lemmy.world
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    There’s been updates and charges:

    https://apnews.com/article/california-biolab-covid19-test-kits-china-arrest-3ee30af1548356e017276860ebb21f53

    The Chinese owner of an unauthorized central California lab that fueled conspiracy theories about China and biological weapons has been arrested on charges of not obtaining the proper permits to manufacture tests for COVID-19, pregnancy and HIV, and mislabeling some of the kits.

    https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/operator-central-california-bio-lab-indicted-distributing-adulterated-and-misbranded

    Edit: Original discovery article was from July 25, 2023:

    https://midvalleytimes.com/article/news/2023/07/25/investigation-on-reedley-building-uncovers-bio-health-hazards/

    investigators discovered that one room of the warehouse was used to produce COVID-19 and pregnancy tests

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    7 months ago

    “Our local politicians are out there terming it Wuhan 2.0,” said Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba.

    Living in Reedley must be a trip with people like that in charge. I watched the whole video, and everyone interviewed seemed wack.

  • Jessvj93@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Were they stealing serum? Like Bovine serum and sending it to China? That’s the only guess I can reasonably make.