Bipartisan Group in Congress Warns of ‘Serious Safety Risk’ From Illegal Biolabs

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is trying to quickly advance a bill aimed at strengthening biosecurity laws after the discoveries of illegal biolabs in Las Vegas and California.Congressman Kevin Kiley and five other representatives sent a letter this week to the House leadership asking for an immediate hearing and markup on the Preventing Illegal Laboratories and Protecting Public Health Act.The legislation was developed in direct response to the 2023 discovery of an illegal laboratory at Reedley, California. A large volume of lab materials and biological samples were uncovered in a warehouse there. Those materials were possibly associated with infectious diseases including hepatitis, COVID-19, HIV, malaria, and other potentially dangerous pathogens.The congressional letter claims investigators faced a difficult, multi-agency scramble to determine what was in the lab, what risks it posed, and what tools existed to respond.Another lab was uncovered last month in the garage of a Las Vegas house that was also being rented out as an Airbnb vacation home.Investigators say they found out that the owner of the Las Vegas home was already in federal custody on charges related to the California biolab. That man has been identified as Jia Bei Zhu, a Chinese citizen.The lawmakers’ letter says the active investigation of the Las Vegas lab only reinforces the urgency of closing enforcement gaps now rather than after the next incident. Taken along with alleged foreign linked financing concerns, the need for practical federal safeguards and clearer coordination channels is hard to ignore, the letter claims.An investigation by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party documented serious concerns raised by the Reedley incident and highlighted clear gaps in oversight, visibility, and coordination that can allow dangerous biological activity to operate under the radar.“The recently discovered bio labs operating in our country propose a serious safety risk to communities and a serious national security risk,” Mr. Kiley said in a statement. “Congress has an opportunity and a responsibility to close these gaps before another community is put at risk.”The bill would strengthen federal oversight of the transfers of highly pathogenic agents. It would also improve coordination of investigations into suspicious lab activity.There is also more information surfacing about Mr. Zhu, meanwhile, who faces a federal trial in April connected to the California lab.Mr. Zhu was the vice chairman of a state-controlled biological engineering company in Communist China in the early 2000s. He later moved to Canada and court records uncovered by local news site GV Wire show Mr. Zhu stole intellectual property in an effort to use it to build up the Chinese dairy industry. He fled a Canadian jail sentence and slipped into the United States some time after 2016. He later was able to get a California driver’s license and work permit despite being illegal.Las Vegas police say Mr. Zhu set up a new network of companies in America and acquired biological materials and medical machinery to set up a laboratory in California. He then later started operations in Las Vegas that went undetected, even after the illegal lab was discovered at Reedley.

Bipartisan Group in Congress Warns of ‘Serious Safety Risk’ From Illegal Biolabs

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