Universal Meditech Inc.’s old Fresno, California warehouse has been the subject of complaints concerning improper temperature controls, dried blood, insects, doubts about adequate ventilation, and overall filth.
Fox News has uncovered unseen footage from last year showing a vast warehouse stocked with antiquated imported scientific equipment and coolers with unidentified substances. The bottles for some of the fluids used to contain
name-brand beverages.
The report showed health authorities in Fresno County said the items in the Fortune Avenue warehouse, captured on hours of film, were presumably moved in secret to an illegal industrial facility adjacent to Reedley. City authorities filed suit to gain entry to the premises and shut it down. Twenty potentially fatal pathogenic pathogens were discovered as well.
Even though the Reedley facility was red-tagged and its contents were systematically disposed of, no significant action has been taken against UMI or its staff members despite the many municipal, state, and federal investigations.
UMI was forced to vacate its Fresno facility last year. Lawyers for a Louisiana firm that had business with them were granted access to the warehouse only a few months before.
UMI allegedly produced pregnancy tests and COVID-19 tests. Medical and technical books in Mandarin Chinese were also visible in the footage.
Medical expert David Vigerust, who was hired by the attorneys and accompanied them on their tour of the warehouse, said UMI didn’t have the ability to produce COVID-19 tests in the facility.
The attorneys involved in the lawsuit believed UMI was engaging in fraud by assembling low-quality Chinese components in Fresno. A judge sided with the Louisiana firm before the trial began because UMI and its officials routinely disregarded court orders and severed ties with their legal team.
The films showed laboratory mice at the warehouse, which, like all the other goods there, were destined for Reedley. Because of the horrible conditions, a state veterinarian euthanized hundreds of mice that had not yet expired.
The unlicensed lab in California owned by Prestige Biotech, a Chinese company, has been under investigation since last month when Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) disclosed the probe in a press release. The lab was accused of conducting risky research on COVID-19.
