GUANGDONG, CHINA - On Dec. 14, Chinese authorities confirmed the investigation and closure of bird flu expert Guan Yi’s laboratory. The lab, located at the Shantou University in Shantou City, Guangdong province, was shut down because it “did not meet state regulations.”
The CCP’s chief veterinarian, Jia Youling, said that during the first half of the year, three labs that “did not meet state regulations” were ordered to stop research on the bird flu. Jia claimed that no country would allow such labs to operate without any supervision, and the purpose of these regulations is to safeguard the public and to prevent pathogenic microbes from being used by terrorists. However, the outside world generally believes that the closure of Guan’s lab was related to his boldness in exposing bird flu cases covered up by the CCP.
Earlier, Guan Yi revealed to Hong Kong and foreign media that only one Chinese laboratory, which is directly under the government’s control, is officially allowed to conduct tests for bird flu. The CCP is concerned about its own interests and image. It is reluctant to share information about the epidemic with the international community. CCP leaders claim that they are working very hard to thwart the epidemic because they do not want to sacrifice their political future; but to them, any genuine information about the epidemic will threaten their positions.
Guan stated that there is evidence that there are provinces in China that already have the virus, but the officials have yet to inform the public. He was critical of the current bird flu situation in China, saying it was a man-made disaster in China’s political age; and that a group of political parasites have abducted China, causing misery to the people.
Guan Yi was previously involved in animal flu research. He shifted his focus to the bird flu after the 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong. In November, he was lauded as the “bird flu hunter” in Time magazine and was also chosen as one of the world’s 18 greatest life-saving heroes. In 2003, during the SARS crisis, Guan cooperated with city of Guangzhou in SARS prevention research.
On Dec. 14, CCP authorities declared that 23 out of the 26 epidemic-affected areas since October had been removed from the affected list. According to the figures released by the CCP, there were 30 highly pathogenic bird flu incidents this year. Since October, 26 cases were reported in nine provinces/regions, including Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Xinjiang, Shanxi, Yunnan and Ningxia, and out of these, 23 have been taken off of the list.
