Chinese Spy Caught in Canadian BioLab Stealing Deadly Viruses!

Written by Karen Pauls · CBC News on June 15, 2020. Posted in Current News

A Chinese scientist who was escorted out of Canada’s only level-4 biolab over a possible “policy breach” shipped deadly Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to the CBC, citing newly-released documents.

The shipment is not related to COVID-19 or the pandemic.

Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, her husband Keding Cheng and her Chinese students were removed from the Canadian lab after the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) asked the RCMP to investigate several months earlier. According to PHAC, Qiu’s eviction from the lab is not connected to the shipment.

“It is suspicious. It is alarming. It is potentially life-threatening,” said University of Ottawa law professor and epidemiologist, Amir Attaran.

Amir Attaran, professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa, is concerned about the shipment of dangerous viruses sent from Canada’s only level-4 lab to China. (CBC)

While Canada doesn’t do ‘gain-of-function’ experiments – which are where natural pathogens are mutated in a lab and assessed to see if it has become more deadly or infectious, “The Wuhan lab does them and we have now supplied them with Ebola and Nipah viruses. It does not take a genius to understand that this is an unwise decision,” said Attaran.

“I am extremely unhappy to see that the Canadian government shared that genetic material.”

Attaran pointed to an Ebola study first published in December 2018, three months after Qiu began the process of exporting the viruses to China. The study involved researchers from the NML and University of Manitoba.

The lead author, Hualei Wang, is involved with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, a Chinese military medical research institute in Beijing.

All of this has led to conspiracy theories linking the novel coronavirus responsible for COVID-19, Canada’s microbiology lab, and the lab in Wuhan. –CBC

The documents also shed light on communications from the months leading up to the shipment – including confusion on how to package the viruses, along with a lack of decontamination of the package prior to its shipment, as well as concerns expressed by NML Director-General Matthew Gilmour to his superiors in Ottawa – particularly over where the package was going, what was in it, and whether its paperwork was in order.

CBC News received hundreds of pages of documents through an Access to Information request, detailing a shipment of Ebola and Henipah viruses sent from the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, to the Wuhan virology lab in China. (Karen Pauls/CBC News)

In one email, Gilmour said Material Transfer Agreements would be required, “not generic ‘guarantees’ on the storage and usage.”

He also asked David Safronetz, chief of special pathogens: “Good to know that you trust this group. How did we get connected with them?”

Safronetz replied: “They are requesting material from us due to collaboration with Dr. Qiu.” –CBC

According to the report, the shipper of the viruses had originally planned to use inappropriate packaging, and only corrected the mistake when the WIV flagged the issue.

“The only reason the correct packaging was used is because the Chinese wrote to them and said, ‘Aren’t you making a mistake here?’ If that had not happened, the scientists would have placed on an Air Canada flight, several of them actually, a deadly virus incorrectly packaged. That nearly happened,” said Attaran.

Read the rest of the report here.

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