An illegal lab in California containing nearly 1,000 bioengineered mice has officials concerned after improperly stored tissue samples were tested and discovered to contain infectious diseases including HIV and Hepatitis.
“This is an unusual situation. I’ve been in government for 25 years. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba said, per local news outlet KRON4.
The makeshift lab contained roughly 30 refrigerators and freezers — some of which were non-operational — as well as incubators, medical testing supplies, and hundreds of mice. Several disease samples tested from the lab included infectious agents like herpes, coronavirus, E. Coli, and malaria, SFist reported.
Wang Zhaolin, a representative of the company operating the lab, Prestige Biotech, told investigators that the mice inside the warehouse had been genetically engineered to catch and spread the COVID-19 virus, according to The San Joaquin Valley Sun.
The warehouse came under investigation in March after a local code enforcement officer discovered a garden hose attached to a back wall of the building. As officials searched, medical devices that appeared to have been created on-site, such as COVID-19 and pregnancy tests, were also discovered, NBC News reported.
More on this from a couple days ago: Secret Chinese medical lab discovered in California. ABN
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