This is a modern-day Trojan horse
3/7/21
Early last March, the state of Washington was the site of the first major coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. As the need for COVID tests spiked, BGI Group, the world’s largest biotech firm – a global giant based in China – approached the state of Washington with an enticing offer.
In a strikingly personal letter to the governor, BGI proposed to build and help run state-of-the-art COVID testing labs. BGI would “provide technical expertise,” provide “high throughput sequencers” and even “make additional donations.”
It seemed like an offer the state couldn’t refuse, especially given the need. But officials were suspicious about BGI and its connections to the Chinese government.
Bill Evanina, a former counterintelligence official in the U.S., called the lab’s offers a modern-day Trojan horse.
BGI comes to the U.S. bearing gifts, but harboring other motives. It’s unclear whether BGI, or any COVID tester, would get DNA from nasal swabs, Evanina told 60 Minutes, but the labs are a way to establish a foothold, to bring their equipment here, start mining your data, and set up shop in your neighborhood.
BGI, formerly known as Beijing Genomics Institute, is based in the Chinese city of Shenzhen and specializes in gene sequencing. The company plays an important role in China’s efforts to be a global leader in genomics. BGI administers the China National Gene Bank, a giant genomic database funded by the Chinese government.
At least 11 states, from Alabama to South Dakota, said they got offers for BGI-manufactured tests or testing laboratories that could be constructed rapidly. While nearly all states flatly rejected BGI’s offer, the federal government was not so firm.
The FDA granted emergency-use authorization to BGI Americas, the company’s U.S. subsidiary, for its Covid-19 test. When pressed about the decision by the Wall Street Journal, the FDA declined to comment.
Nevada ended up getting Covid-19 test equipment including nasal swabs from BGI, but not the testing machines. “There was no capacity for anyone to do anything that would be nefarious,” James Murren said, who had been chief executive of casino operations for MGM Resorts International before taking over Nevada’s COVID task force.
The Gates Foundation and BGI
In September of 2012, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation signed a “Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to form a collaboration on global health and agricultural development with the goal of achieving common objectives in health and agricultural development.”
The agreement supported “the prompt and broad dissemination of information from collaboration projects…[and] broad access to any technology arising from a project.”
The co-founder of BGI praised the agreement, celebrating the forthcoming “scientific breakthroughs in the areas of human, plant and animal genomics.” He also revealed that the collaborative efforts focused on sequencing genomes—the precise activity flagged for US national security threats:
“Having contributed to the Human Genome Project as well as sequencing the genomes of many critical plant and animal species and human diseases, including the initial sequencing of the rice genome as well as our involvement in the Rice 10,000 Genome Project, the 1,000 Plants and Animals Genome Project, the International 1,000 genomes project, the 1,000 Rare Diseases Project, the International Cancer Genome Project, Autism Genome 10K, among others, BGI looks forward to partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in this significant collaboration to apply genomics research to benefit global human health.”
The Gates Foundation also funded BGI projects relating to genome sequencing alongside Chinese Communist Party bodies such as the Ministry of Science and Technology and Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The stated goal by the Gates foundation was to “kickstart a second green revolution.”
Speaking about China’s efforts to steal our DNA, Dr. Siegel told Tucker Carlson, “There’s no free lunch” He continue, “They’re mining, my DNA, your DNA. They’re going to combine it with life style data that’s hacked from us.”
Dr. Siegel told Carlson the Chinese will control our healthcare unless stopped.