It’s shady practices like this that fuel conspiracy theories and erode public trust in science.
Well, because it is actually
The county also discovered nearly 1,000 bioengineered mice. Wang Zhaolin, a representative of Prestige Biotech – the company operating the lab – told county investigators that the mice were genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus
I mean if you don’t want conspiracy theories to spread then don’t make them true to begin with
I actually noticed that when searching for “prestige biotech” (the name of the company) pretty much all the conservative media already state that it is Chinese linked. The weird thing is that they state it as a fact without explaining how they arrived to this conclusion.
I mean, it very well might be, but tell me how you arrived to that conclusion.
Chinese listed owner. Chinese representative. Mysterious purpose with unknown source of funds. Not too hard to connect the dots.
Edit: Apparently people don’t realise Chinese can refer to ethnicity as well as nationality. Yes, it would be ideal if we had different terms for the two.
Both the owner and representative of the company are Chinese, so why wouldn’t she think that?
Also, how many other countries would be interested in maintaining a bioweapons facility in the US?
Because being Chinese doesn’t mean you are a Chinese nationalist. It’s a pretty racist jump to make.
You speak as if this is common. The reason this is news is because it’s random AF.
Here is my issue: they seem to be using ‘bio-engendered mice’ as a scare phrase. Nearly all mice in a research facility will be, everywhere.
It’ve been weirder had they NOT been genetically modified.
I’m REALLY not trying to deaden the conspiracy-ness of this article…
But during covid we basically let a lot of research protocols and testing slack on the protocols:
I haven’t seen a protocol exception on sourcing research subjects, but I’m sure one was in place during covid, and I will bet real money these clowns were selling test mice, their paperwork was in faded crayon, they got paid 100x the normal prices, and unlike everyone else they just were too stupid to shut down and get out while the getting was good.
What was illegal about it? Was that warehouse not zoned for labs? Obviously poor storage and labeling practices, but surly (maybe) not illegal?
You can’t just decide to set up a medical lab and do experiments with infectious diseases and animals without permits and licences and oversight, you know.
The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a herpes infected mouse is a good guy with a herpes infected mouse
A lot of stuff sounded illegal. Poor storage is illegal when dealing with bio safety hazards of this level, poor labeling too. Sounded like they didn’t have protocols available or even approved by review boards which is illegal. I doubt they even had proper bio safety ratings which would be illegal in this case. The whole situation sounds extremely dangerous and I hope no harm has been done.
