THE BUSINESS JOURNAL – A Fresno City Council member is calling for health officials to be held responsible for the operation of an illegal medical lab in Reedley.
Councilmember Garry Bredefeld held a city hall press conference Monday morning demanding to know why the County of Fresno and its health department did not inform the public of the discovery of the biological medical lab sooner.
On July 25, The Midvalley Times reported that in March Reedley code enforcement officers began their investigation into a warehouse at 850 I Street over an illegally attached garden hose, discovering an illegal medical lab operated by Prestige Biotech Inc. of Nevada.
In December 2022, the City of Reedley first contacted the county about possible code violations. The Fresno County Public Health Department first entered the warehouse in April.
According to a search on the Nevada Secretary of State Business Registration page, the president of Prestige Biotech is listed as Xiuqin Yao.
According to NBC news, Yao told officials that Prestige Biotech moved assets belonging to the defunct Universal Meditech to the Reedley warehouse from Fresno after Universal Meditech closed operations.
Bredefeld wants answers from the Fresno County Board of Supervisors on why they didn’t inform the public about the incident, learning about the case from midvalleytimes.com, which sourced health department officials.
He also wants to know if the owners of these companies are Chinese nationals and if the lab was funded by China’s government.
“The public has a right to know what did the Board of Supervisors know about the lab, when did they know it and why they didn’t inform the public,” said Bredefeld, who is challenging Steve Brandau for his District 2 supervisor seat … READ MORE.
