Millions of Made-in-China COVID Test Kits Are Making Their Way to American Homes

Free iHealth COVID-19 antigen rapid tests from the federal government sit on a U.S. Postal Service envelope after being delivered in San Anselmo, Calif., on Feb. 4, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The return of the White House’s free COVID-19 test kits also brings back something else: the “Made-in-China” label.

The program, the fifth of its kind, allows each U.S. household to order up to four free tests online starting from Sept. 25, with shipments delivered through the U.S. Postal Service without charge.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stated that it has awarded $600 million to 12 “domestic COVID-19 test manufacturers” to produce 200 million tests to replenish government stockpiles in addition to meeting the demands from orders on COVIDTests.gov.

But although the department described the spending as part of “critical investments in U.S. manufacturing” meant to “improve preparedness for COVID-19 and other pandemic threats of the future” and “strengthen the nation’s capacity to manufacture tests,” more than half of the funding has flowed to companies with connections in China.

The winner of the largest award, iHealth, with a $167 million contract, is the California subsidiary of Andon, a supplier of medical electronic devices based in Chinese megacity Tianjin. The California lab is under the oversight of Andon’s Cayman Islands-based iHealth Inc. Xiaomi, a top Chinese smartphone maker that Lithuania’s National Cyber Security Centre said was using a built-in censorship tool in its flagship products, holds a 20 percent stake in iHealth Inc.

The Chinese firm had, for years, been struggling financially, until the explosive growth for iHealth kits in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic reversed the trend. Andon’s annual filing shows that iHealth products made up about 98.7 percent of its 2022 sales. Some of the top contracts came from the state health departments of New York and Massachusetts, the Army Contracting Command, and the Defense Logistics Agency.

Companies Toe the Party Line

Another awardee, California-based CorDx, is part of a biotech organization called CorDx Union, with manufacturing facilities in China and Singapore. Although it’s registered with a San Diego address, CorDx Union is ultimately a part of the Beijing-based Beijing Entrepreneur Culture Group under Li Yufeng, who’s listed as the executive vice president for the Hebei Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, a government-controlled organization that stipulates “promoting directives and policies of the [Chinese Communist] Party and the nation to member firms” in its charter.

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A rapid at-home COVID-19 test in Chelsea, Mass., on Dec. 17, 2021. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

CorDx seemed to have consciously distanced itself from its China associations. In a Google cached result, the company had previously used the description “manufacturers from China.” That wording is no longer in use on its website.

Part of the criteria for being on the chamber’s leadership team is to “adhere to the Party’s path,” according to the charter. And Mr. Li appears to have followed that closely.

Between May 2017 and May 2018, Beijing Entrepreneur Cultural Group held at least four internal events that it dubbed “Core Classroom”—the word “core” being part of the organization’s brand—at which loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was the main theme, according to releases from Coretests, a Beijing-based CorDx Union subsidiary.

In celebrating the 96th anniversary of the CCP’s founding in 2017, the Beijing Entrepreneur Cultural Group organized all Party members to study Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s speeches and spent a month establishing a flower bed of more than 8,700 square feet that formed into the words “not forgetting why you started.” It was named “Loyalty Tower Plaza,” according to a statement from Accu News, another CorDx Union subsidiary that sells HIV diagnostic kits.

A screenshot of Google search results for CorDx taken on Sept. 25. (Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Some Chinese media reports suggest that Maxim Biomedical is under the control of Mr. Li. Although no publicly available information confirms the information is true, photos published by Chinese-language media in January 2022 show the company’s president, Joe Ma, with Mr. Li, signing paperwork and posing for photos in which the pair holds what resembles a signed check.

One video screenshot also shows Mr. Li hiring, on Chinese social media platform WeChat, researchers for “recombinant antibodies” and diagnostics in both China and the United States, attaching a letter from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowing COVID-19 test kits from Maxim Biomedical for emergency use. Import data from trade data aggregator Panjiva show that Maxim Biomedical had been sourcing supplies from Shanghai as recently as 2021.

Unveiling China Ties

San Diego drug test manufacturer Advin Biotech in 2015 was acquired by Biotest from China’s southeastern city Hangzhou, which holds a 90 percent stake as of last year. The pandemic, as it did for Andon, gave a major boost to Biotest’s diagnostic kit sales. COVID-related products supplied 90 percent of its revenue stream for the first half of 2022. In its latest annual filing, the company cited potential U.S. regulatory changes as a possible hurdle in its medical gear imports.

In vitro diagnostic company Azure Biotech in Houston also has a significant Chinese connection.

A September 2020 letter from the FDA—granting emergency use authorization to Azure’s devices to detect COVID-19 antibodies in blood samples—was addressed to the company’s director, Frank Lou, who, according to the letter, also represents Hangzhou-based Assure Tech.

Azure was a top buyer of Assure Tech’s products from 2018 to 2020, the Chinese firm’s filings reveal. Although Azure’s name no longer appears in Assure Tech’s financial reports in the subsequent years, following questions about whether such sales constitute related party transactions, Azure remains the U.S. representative for the company’s devices, a January 2022 handout from the FDA shows. Azure’s test kits bear the Assure brand logo.

The funding for Advin, Azure, CorDx, and iHealth totaled roughly $320 million. None of the firms mentioned a connection to a Chinese entity on its website.

Such deals struck Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) as “very concerning,” she said.

“Anytime we’re using Chinese companies, I think we need to be skeptical about that,” she told The Epoch Times.

Ms. Ernst isn’t the only one to express alarm.

“It’s a waste of taxpayer monies to be sending out those test kits,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a doctor who has long advocated for natural immunity, told The Epoch Times.

“I think that this is a total overreaction by the CDC and the White House and a waste of taxpayer money.”

He also said he perceives “no clinical significance to be doing the test.”

The HHS and White House didn’t respond to an inquiry from The Epoch Times.

The Epoch Times reached out to iHealth, CorDx, Maxim Biomedical, Azure, Assure Tech, and Advin for comment but received none by press time.