LOCAL NEWS
‘I’ve never seen anything like this’: Illegal medical lab discovered in Reedley
by: Juanita Adame
Posted: Jul 27, 2023 / 02:37 PM PDT
Updated: Jul 28, 2023 / 11:15 AM PDT
REEDLEY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – An investigation into a Reedley warehouse uncovered a large-scale illegal medical lab complete with bioengineered mice, infectious agents, nearly 30 refrigerators and freezers some of which were non-operational, incubators, and more leaving officials shocked and the public worried.
Local, state, and federal agencies are all involved and what prompted this investigation was a simple garden hose that was illegally attached and coming out of a wall in the back of the building.
It was inside an ordinary warehouse located on “I” and Ninth Streets in the City of Reedley that a disturbing and shocking discovery was made back in April.
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“This is an unusual situation. I’ve been in government for 25 years. I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba.
Even county health officials were left in shock.
“I’ve never seen this in my 26-year career with the County of Fresno,” said Assistant Director of the Fresno County Department of Public Health Joe Prado.
What was supposed to be an empty building used only for storage was home to a black-market type of lab testing facility.
“So there was over 800 different chemicals on site in different bottles of different acids. Unfortunately, a lot of these are being categorized under unknown chemicals,” Prado explained.
The discovery was made after a local code enforcement officer noticed this garden hose poking out a back wall of the building.
“Frankly, we knew that should not have been there and when she went to investigate, she found that there was activity or operation or something happening within that building,” Zieba said
The city then obtained several search warrants to enter the building and once inside they found something they have never seen.
“There was a special room that was built housing about 1000 white lab mice,” Zieba explained.
What they found was absolutely terrifying.
“Through their statements that they were doing some testing on laboratory mice that would help them support, developing the COVID test kits that they had on-site,” Prado said.
Health officials discovered nearly 1,000 lab mice, 200 of which were already dead.
Also found were thousands of vials, many of which contained biohazardous materials including human blood, and other unknown substances.
“A lot of these labels have been removed from bottles so there was only so much testing. We could do those chemicals,” Prado continued.
According to court documents officials with the Centers for Disease Control tested what they could and determined that at least 20 potentially infectious viral, bacterial, and parasitic agents were present including E. Coli, malaria, and even COVID.
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