CDC Responds to Claims About Chinese Biolab in California

In response to Harper's discovery, the city launched an investigation which eventually involved the California Department of Public Health, the federal Food and Drug Administration, the CDC and the FBI. It comes amidst heightened tensions between the United States and China, with the world's two biggest economies clashing over trade, human rights and the sovereignty of both Taiwan and the South China Sea.

CDC experts identified a number of potentially infectious agents at the Reedley site, including chlamydia, HIV, Hepatitis B and C, malaria, SARS-CoV-2, Dengue virus and the rubella virus.

The CDC observed in its own reporting that '[t]housands of vials had unclear labeling, coded labeling, or no identifications,' that biohazard signs were around many of these unlabeled vials, and that the labeled vials included Risk Group 2 and 3 pathogens.

"Despite the probability that the unlabeled or coded vials contained additional unknown and dangerous pathogens, CDC officials refused to take any further investigative steps.”

Speaking to Newsweek, a CDC official with knowledge of the investigation fervently disputed these findings.

The report includes numerous inaccuracies, including both the charge that CDC did not respond to local requests for aid and the false implication that CDC had the authority to unilaterally investigate or seize samples from PBI's Reedley building.

"Indeed, CDC has, and continues to be been actively engaged, within its regulatory authorities, in the intergovernmental efforts to address issues surrounding the facility.”

"However, this position was vehemently rejected by a spokesperson for the House Select Committee on the CCP who told Newsweek:"First, the CDC claims it responded to requests for aid.

The CDC only responded to Reedley's request for help handling the bio lab after Reedley reached out to its Congressman, Jim Costa.

As you can see in the email attached, the CDC said they were not going to test anything that they couldn't read the label on.

"Second, the CDC claims that they did not have the 'authority to unilaterally investigate', when they absolutely did. The city of Reedley urged the CDC to investigate, which ultimately gives the CDC all the authority it would have needed to investigate. But then to go a step further, the CDC was given authority to investigate via court order.”

"The CDC endangered the biosecurity of a town in California and our country.”