Home Care In Reedley, CA

As new details emerge, we are starting to learn the full timeline of events on how an illegal lab began to operate in Reedley.

REEDLEY, Calif. (KFSN) -- In order to combat misinformation, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors received an update from the county's Department of Public Health Tuesday on the illegal lab in Reedley.

We now have a breakdown of what is known publicly about the lab in Reedley that was found operating illegally earlier this year.

Here's everything we know about the illegal Reedley Lab

Officials found Prestige Biotech and Universal Meditech Inc. had unauthorized biological agents, samples of bodily fluid, infectious diseases, COVID and pregnancy tests and nearly 1,000 mice at the Reedley Facility illegal without permits or permissions.

RELATED: Lab operating in Reedley shut down after officials found infectious agents and chemicals

"As I made contact with the workers on site, red flags started to go up, but I still, in my wildest dreams, wouldn't have realized what was inside the building and what they were actually storing on site," said Reedley code enforcement officer Jesalyn Harper.

Tuesday morning, Zieba and Joe Prado from Fresno County Public Health detailed the long history of Prestige Biotech/Universal Meditech in the Central Valley.

2015 to 2019 - Tulare City Manager Josh McDonnell says Prestige Biotech and Universal Meditech operated out of a building on East Tulare Avenue and South Mooney Boulevard in Tulare.

2018 - Prestige Biotech and Universal Meditech Inc.'s operated out of a warehouse in Southwest Fresno near East North Avenue and South Orange Avenue. The health department said at this time, the company had live mice used for tests. At this time, the company had the proper permits to operate.

August 2020 - Southwest Fresno warehouse catches fire. An Environmental health inspector visits the warehouse following the fire and finds the company did not have a hazardous materials business plan for the ethanol it was using.

October 2022 - Fresno County Department of Public Health staff received a complaint about chemicals at the Southwest Fresno location, but they could not get access. This was the last record the Department of Public Health had of the company operating in the city of Fresno.

December 2022 - A Reedley code enforcement officer finds a green garden hose sticking out of a building at I Street and 10th Street in Reedley. Prado says the FBI was contacted to evaluate the potential public safety risk of the operation. Ultra-low temperature lab freezers designed for temperatures of 80 degrees below zero were found at the Reedley site.

March 2023 - After meetings in January and February and amid a nationwide recall of the company's COVID tests, officials finally gain access to walk through the facility. This is when the lab is officially shut down under an unsafe-to-occupy notice.

March 16, 2023 - A judge grants Public Health officials an inspection warrant for the Reedley facility. Inside they found 55 gallons of ethanol, 6 empty containers of liquid nitrogen, and live mice used for tests.

April 21, 2023 - Fresno County orders its first of three health orders. Prado says during this time Prestige Biotech was in communication with the Department of Public Health.

June 26, 2023 - A judge issues an abatement warrant.

July 2023 - All biological materials are removed and destroyed by Fresno County and other agencies.

Present time - The City of Reedley continues the cleanup effort, including the removal of freezers, furniture and other medical equipment. "My hope is that by the time we enter heavily in fall, it will be another empty warehouse like we thought it was for the last decade," said Zieba.

Universal Meditech Inc.'s website currently displays its nationwide recall notice for it's COVID-19 antigen rapid test kit.

Using the San Francisco-based non-profit Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, we are able to see the company's mission statement.

Its mission statement reads: Universal Meditech Inc. is an innovative solution provider who develops, manufactures and markets state-of-the-art In Vitro Diagnostic medical devices. UMI's IVD reagent manufacturing service includes formulation, testing, filling, label control, inspection, packaging and shipping.

UMI was established in 2015 in Central California with the vision of a major international diagnostics business providing patients, doctors, hospitals and healthcare providers with diagnostic testing for disease identification and disease predisposition.

Court documents state Presitege Biotech is a Nevada-based company, however, no website was found explicitly under that name.

Local residents are upset over the city of Reedley's transparency on the illegal lab.

The Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba has been questioned as to why no one in the community was told about the lab sooner.

RELATED: Reedley city manager under fire following fallout of illegal lab

Zieba says it was the federal authorities who told them to hold off on notifying the public until they knew what they were dealing with.

They say during the entire process, the FBI told them there was never any threat to public safety.

Zieba also said they wanted to keep communication open with Universal Meditech and Prestige Biotech to continue learning what they were doing in the lab. She says now that everything is public, they have not heard from the company.

On a local level, officials are trying to bring awareness to state and federal loopholes allowing these types of businesses to operate.

Zieba says she believes this should be a bipartisan issue that brings everyone together to create change.

"I expect that as this issue rises to the surface nationwide, more and more of these are going to be discovered around the country," said Zieba.

"As we go through any next steps, we are going to evaluate our resources, we are gonna evaluate our fee structures with businesses as it comes to hazard mitigation plans, and everything else here that we can at the local level to ensure this doesn't happen here," said Prado.

The Fresno County Department of Public Health is trying to clarify misinformation surrounding the lab, stating the myths being spread throughout the City of Reedley are untrue.

"At this time there's no evidence of the business being connected to a foreign government," said Prado.

"There's a local myth in Reedley -- there's a supermarket that shut down across the street, there's a local myth that it shut down because mice got out and infected the supermarket -- no no no, the roof is collapsing in the supermarket and it shut a year prior to this lab coming to Reedley," said Zieba.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said it "strongly disputes" criticism of the federal agency contained in a major new report, produced by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), concerning an alleged secret biolab in Reedley, California.

According to the report, thousands of vials containing potentially dangerous or unknown substances, including some labeled "Ebola" and "HIV," were uncovered during an inspection of what was initially thought to be a vacant warehouse. The facility was uncovered in December 2022 by Jesalyn Harper, a Reedley code enforcement official who spotted a green hose sticking out of the building, and then went in to investigate. Inside, Harper found an array of laboratory equipment, medical-grade freezers, mice for experiments and vials containing writing in English, Mandarin and an unknown code. Several individuals wearing lab coats were also discovered who claimed to be Chinese nationals.

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. On Wednesday, Chinese premier Xi Jinping held talks with President Joe Biden near San Francisco, on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference.

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. However, according to the report, they refused to test a number of unlabeled vials, along with a fridge labeled "Ebola," which were destroyed before their exact content could be ascertained.

Newsletter

The Bulletin

By clicking on SIGN ME UP, you agree to Newsweek's Terms of Use & Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.

The House committee report branded the CDC's response "inadequate," claiming the agency initially refused to take a phone call from city and county officials.

It continued: "The CDC's refusal to test any samples is likewise baffling. 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."

"The CDC's continued refusal to test pathogens despite reasonable requests and the offer to pay from local officials facing a concerned populace simply does not make sense," it continued.

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

Referencing the committee report, they said: "CDC strongly disputes the report's conclusions critical of the agency. 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. But the CDC only responded to Reedley's request for help handling the bio lab after Reedley reached out to its Congressman, Jim Costa. Then once they got there, they even refused to test any of the potentially dangerous pathogens. As you can see in the email attached (the email can be attributed to the Select Committee), the CDC said they were not going to test anything that they couldn't read the label on. So we'll never what was in those vials because they destroyed much of the untested material.

"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."

According to the report, the committee biolab was owned by Jia Bei Zhu, a Chinese national with links to his country's governing Communist Party, who operated through a number of companies including Prestige Biotech Incorporated (PBI). In October, Zhu was arrested on suspicion of manufacturing and distributing misbranded medical devices in violation of the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) and making false statements to the FDA. If convicted he faces a maximum three years in prison.

Update 11/29/23, 2:45 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with comment from a spokesperson for the House Select Committee on the CCP.

REEDLEY, Calif. (KFSN) -- The fallout continues over an illegal lab uncovered in Reedley, which contained hazardous materials, biological agents, and nearly one-thousand mice.

Local leaders are addressing how a lab like this, could've found its way to Fresno County.

Reedley officials say when they noticed an unpermitted lab in Reedley last December, they immediately contacted state and federal partners.

And they say while the city helped with the investigation, state and federal law loopholes allowed the business to operate.

At the end of 2022, city code enforcement staff noticed an unpermitted business operating at 850 I Street, in Reedley.

City Manager Nicole Zieba says they reached out to the county, as well as state and federal government agencies.

"From December 21st was when our federal partners started to tell us, not to tell the public yet because we didn't know what we had," said Zieba.

Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig says, because the lab is a privately funded business, there were extra steps they had to take to find out more about what was going on inside.

"So initially, when the county, as well as the city of Reedley, became aware of this situation, we began to work through the courts and work through State agencies, so we could gain access to the site," said Magsig.

Through inspection and abatement warrants, they learned the lab was creating illegal covid and pregnancy tests, and testing on rodents.

But both Zieba and Magsig say they quickly confirmed there was no threat to public safety. Still, they are now calling for more regulations to ensure this doesn't happen again.

"The public doesn't need to fear for their safety, but they should have concern for how this lab started in the first place, and the federal and state loopholes that allowed privately funded labs - now these were bad actors but even legal labs - to operate within their communities and really no one knows," said Zieba.

Magsig adds they will work with legislators to create more laws to help address this.

"It appears that there are some loopholes in the law when it relates to privately funded laboratories. And so there wasn't enough oversight for Meditech and some of these other operators that were involved. So we are asking our state partners as well as the Federal Government to get involved to not only look at this site here, but make sure that something like this doesn't happen again," said Magsig.

Officials say they waited to inform the public until they knew what was taking place.

They also knew once everything was out, the company would stop communicating with investigating agencies.

EXPLAINER: What are the steps if a business wanted to open a lab?

Action News reached out to the California Department of Public health about protocols in place when it comes to labs like the illegal Reedley lab.

The state agency responded say it is working with local, state and federal partners as well as law enforcement authorities, to assess the situation at an unlicensed and unpermitted company at a warehouse in Reedley.

The California Department fo Public Health then provided what are the steps if a business wanted to open a lab:

"To receive licensure to operate a clinical laboratory in California, a business must apply through the California Department of Public Health's Laboratory Field Services (LFS) branch in the Department's Center for Laboratory Sciences (CLS). Licensure is available to and required for all clinical and public health laboratories.

In addition to a California state license, a clinical laboratory must hold a federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certificate. Applications for both the state license and the federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments certificate are submitted to Laboratory Field Services, which is the state agency for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which administers the federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments program.

Note that this requirement applies to clinical and public health laboratories performing diagnostic testing on specimens derived from humans for the purpose of diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of any disease or physiological condition of a human being or the assessment of the health of an individual.

Clinical laboratories are regulated under California law and federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments regulations. Neither Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services nor Laboratory Field Services regulates laboratories performing testing for academic, research, forensic, manufacturing, or veterinary purposes.

State and federal applications for a clinical or public health laboratory license must include:

Once the application has been submitted with the required state fee, the state license application is reviewed by Laboratory Field Services. The federal certificate application is processed by Laboratory Field Services and issued by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, once the federal fee has been paid.

Unauthorized biological agents were found on site, including mice, samples of bodily fluid and infectious diseases.

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors has received an update on the future of an illegal bio-lab discovered in Reedley.

REEDLEY, Calif. (KFSN) -- The Fresno County Board of Supervisors has received an update on the future of an illegal bio-lab discovered in Reedley.

Biological agents and nearly 1,000 mice were found at the lab at the end of last year.

Unauthorized biological agents were found on site, including mice, samples of bodily fluid and infectious diseases.

Now that all the biological agents have been destroyed at the property and the existence of the lab has come out to the public, city and county officials say there's been a lot of misinformation about the facility and its impact on the community.

The county department of public health offered a presentation at Tuesday's board meeting, breaking down the timeline of the lab operations and who knew what activities were going on there.

Officials say it was the federal authorities who told local jurisdictions to hold off on notifying the public until they knew what they were dealing with.

They say during the entire process, they made sure there was never any threat to the public safety.

"I am mighty proud of our little city, this was a bad player company, a bad actor company that was kicked out of Canada, they went to Texas, they got kicked out of Texas, they came to California, they went to Fresno, kicked out of Fresno went to Tulare, kicked out of Tulare went back to Fresno, kicked out of Fresno, came to Reedley," said Reedley City Manager, Nicole Zieba.

Tuesday morning, Zieba and Joe Prado from Fresno County Public Health detailed the long history of Prestige Biotech/Universal Meditech in the Central Valley.

It all started back in 2018 in a warehouse near East North and South Orange Avenues in South Fresno.

"When they were in the City of Fresno, they did have mice there, they were doing their operation there as well," said Assistant Director with the Fresno County Department of Public Health, Joe Prado.

In August 2020, the company had a fire at their East North and South Orange location.

Shortly afterward an environmental health inspector visited the business and found the company did not have a hazardous materials business plan for having ethanol, and the permit was then completed in September.

In October 2022, Fresno County Department of Public Health staff received a complaint about chemicals at the Fresno location, but they could not get access.

"This is where we last heard of Universal Meditech in the City of Fresno," said Prado.

Fast forward to December 2022, when a Reedley code enforcement officer found a green garden hose at "I" and 10th street in Reedley.

"Our team with City of Reedley contacted the FBI to really evaluate potential public safety risk," said Prado.

Prado says they found specialty ultra-low temperature lab freezers designed to hold infectious agents at temperatures up to 80 degrees below zero at the Reedley site.

After meetings in January and February and amid a nationwide recall of the company's covid test, officials were finally able to walk through the facility in early March.

That's when they shut it down, issuing an "unsafe to occupy notice."

On March 16th of this year, the court granted an inspection warrant.

"55 gallons container of ethanol in the warehouse, 6 empty containers of liquid nitrogen, these are all items we started to see once we were able to work with city of Reedley get that inspection warrant and be able to walk through there, the live mice were there and we were going through the warehouse there," said Prado.

By April 21st, the county issued this first of three health orders, and Prado says during this time, Prestige Biotech was communicating with them.

Two months later on June 26th, a judge issued the abatement warrant.

A week later after the July 4th holiday, all the biological materials were removed and destroyed by Fresno County and other agencies.

As of Tuesday, the City of Reedley is finishing up the cleanup effort, including the removal of freezers, furniture and other medical equipment.

"My hope is that by the time we enter heavily in fall, it will be another empty warehouse like we thought it was for the last decade," said Zieba.

Zieba says state and local representatives from Senator Caballero, Senator Hurtado, Congressman Costa and Assemblyman Mathis, have all reached out to her about ways to prevent another illegal lab from operating throughout the Central Valley.

She says she believes this should be a bi-partisan issue that brings everyone together to create change.

"I expect that as this issue rises to the surface nationwide, more and more of these are going to be discovered around the country," said Zieba.

After the discovery of the illegal lab operating in Reedley, local officials are now sounding the alarm on state and federal loopholes that allow these types of businesses to operate.

"It was frustrating going through this response, I got to say, because it just didn't seem there was enough -- there wasn't enough impact to hook, to really be able to go after this business enterprise," said Prado.

Zieba says the lab already has some approvals needed to operate on a state level.

"This company despite everything that has happened, despite the fact that we are dismantling their assets, their physical assets in Reedley, they've applied for a state medical waste generator permit and its been granted, and our understanding is the state couldn't deny it," said Zieba.

Fresno County Supervisor Brian Pacheco is also responding to criticism from Fresno City Councilman Garry Bredefeld.

"He stated members of the board of supervisors knew about this facility for months, that's inaccurate. Simply stated, I knew about it three days before his press conference," said Pacheco.

Prado and Zieba are also trying to clarify misinformation surrounding the lab.

"At this time there's no evidence of the business being connected to a foreign government," said Prado.

Zieba says the myths in Reedley are untrue.

"There's a local myth in Reedley -- there's a supermarket that shut down across the street, there's a local myth that it shut down because mice got out and infected the supermarket -- no no no, the roof is collapsing in the supermarket and it shut a year prior to this lab coming to Reedley," said Zieba.

Prado says they will continue working to see what local officials can do to prevent this type of lab from coming back to Fresno county.

"As we go through any next steps, we are going to evaluate our resources, we are gonna evaluate our fee structures with businesses as it comes to hazard mitigation plans, and everything else here that we can at the local level to ensure this doesn't happen here," said Prado.

The Reedley City Council also has a meeting Tuesday evening at 7 pm.

For previous stories on the Reedley lab, click here.

REEDLEY, Calif (FOX26) — Reedley's illegal bio lab owner threatens to sue the County and City, totaling to $80 million.

[RELATED] Reedley issued subpoena as part of investigation into the secret Chinese-owned lab

On Monday, the City of Reedley received a claim from Universal Meditech Inc., the company operating the illegal biological lab in Reedley, stating city officials unlawfully seized mice and destroyed assets.

UMI is asking for $30,000,000 in damages from the City.

Friday, Fresno County also received a claim from UMI asking for $50,000,000 in damages.

I am very surprised, shocked in fact, because this whole process, we moved very methodically, very clearly through the court system, and we had judges sign off on court orders for every step we've taken," said Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba. "So we're really at a loss to know why they think they have rights to anything.

Friday, the City of Reedley sent UMI an invoice of $310,000 for cost recovery of taxpayer money used during the investigation.

"It's not like we went in with nothing," said Zieba. "We had backup documentation, data, and pictures, and it took a while for the judge to sign off on those."

The City of Reedley and Fresno County received complaints from the public months ago for taking several months to investigate.

Councilmembers Garry Bredefeld, Miguel Arias, and Nelson Esparza held a news conference in August asking that the Infectious Disease Lab Accountability and Transparency ordinance be added to the Fresno Municipal Code and why it took so long for the public to find out about this lab.

"We took some criticism for taking a little too long to abate the lab, and now I think the public can understand why," said Zieba. "We wanted to make sure we had a legally defensible strategy for eliminating this hazard."

In the claim to the city, it states the biological lab never had viruses and bacteria that seriously endangered the public.

"We have a public CDC report that documents over 20," said Zieba.

Right now, Zieba said this threat is not scaring them.

"The city of Reedley is not going to be intimidated by this," she said. "We intend to fully pursue cost recovery, and we will fight this claim."

The claim also states in part, "The improper seizure and unauthorized law enforcement activities, as well as the resulting local public media which published many false and distorted reports, led to the inability to carry out the relocation of the new factory building."

FOX26 has the original court-ordered documents in an article HERE.

We also contacted UMI's lawyer for an interview but have not heard back.

If this claim is denied by the County of Fresno and the City of Reedley, UMI can then file a lawsuit in court.