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It’s shady practices like this that fuel conspiracy theories and erode public trust in science.
My mother appears convinced it’s a Chinese medical lab. So, yea.
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
Wow... I mean I know why that makes sense, but still, wow...
Pretty sure one of the Chinese ran USA labs were caught sending samples of contagious diseases back to China via standard DHL type packages. This was before COVID.
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.
The article didn't mention the guy's nationality, unless I missed it.
Exactly, have they said that, I wouldn't have problem with it. The articles that I looked at weren't mentioning anything beyond it is Chinese linked.
I used the term Chinese to refer to ethnicity, not nationality.
Why would ethnicity matter in this context?
Reading.
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.
Buddy, see my username? Yeah, that's a Chinese name. I of all people know exactly what the difference is between Chinese ethnicity and Chinese nationality.
With that said, the majority of Chinese business people have some connection or other to China, be it family, business, or otherwise. Combine that with the context here of mysterious purpose (but probably bioweapons), unknown funding source and complete lack of any commercial purpose, etc etc, and it's not a hard conclusion to draw.
It’s sad you have to identify yourself as Chinese in order to make this statement.
Like we can’t judge a statement based on it’s content alone.
You speak as if this is common. The reason this is news is because it’s random AF.
I didn’t mean to imply it’s common, just that it’s particularly damaging.
Just like trans athletes in sports. Which are like what? 3 people?
It makes for good headlines and that's why it's news and gives the rightwing conspiracy nuts more fuel for the next big idiotic thing.
Only to people who wouldn't trust science regardless of this event.
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 heard the mice were dosed with dihydrogen-oxide to make them more infectious!
Yeah wild-type mice are present in labs as controls, but by far fewer in number to the modified organisms, apparently
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 without permits and licences and oversight, you know.
Well, this ruins my plans. Goddamn gubmit getting all up in my business.
Shit, my bad.
Not with that attitude
I thought this was America!!!
The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a herpes infected mouse is a good guy with a herpes infected mouse
Clearly they were trying to develop a gun that shoots herpes in this lab.
What if we do them on funguses? Those aren't animals that oughta be fine I haven't watched HBO lately or played any video games
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.
It was illegal, and don't call me surly.
oh the mice were surly alright
I was gonna bet Fresno, Modesto or Bakersfield. Got it in one.
There’s this docu series on netflix (unnatural selection) about genetic engineering in general but also about some people (with and without science background) who believe that anyone should be able to do genetic engineering at home (Josiah Zayner is one of them, i believe he still sells lab equipment and reagents for anyone who want to do some DIY bio-engineering). They also follow this guy who stopped taking his HIV meds and started using some kind of antibody that was developed by some shady company (it didn’t work and guess what; not a single physician was involved). I believe one of these shady guys was found dead in a sensory deprivation pod with ketamine in his blood.
Herpes is illegal now?
🔫 always has been
Well there goes my pox party
Eh there are multiple bioweapon labs across the world that still have small pox and the bubonic plague. You can still have your pox party, just not private.
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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