Clermont Times

House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup D.P.M. (R-OH), Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party have commended the House Oversight Committee's decision to advance the BIOSECURE Act to the House floor. The act was approved by a 40 to 1 vote.

The representatives issued a joint statement following the vote, stating, “The House Oversight Committee just sent a powerful, bipartisan message to the Chinese Communist Party: the United States will not sit idly by while the CCP steals our genetic data and seeks to control our biotech supply chains. We are proud to lead the BIOSECURE Act and look forward to working with House leadership to get this bill on the floor as soon as possible.”

The Chinese Communist Party's national security laws mandate all Chinese firms, including biotechnology companies that collect, test, and store American genomic data, share any requested data with them. Companies such as Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) and WuXi AppTec have been implicated in illicit activities involving data collection without consent and theft of U.S. intellectual property.

BGI, which has collected DNA from millions globally, is known for its involvement in genetic tracking of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang region where genocide against Uyghur people is ongoing. The company gained access to U.S market in August 2022 after years of litigation over theft of U.S intellectual property.

WuXi AppTec makes over 60% of their revenue from the U.S. market, implying that U.S consumers are directly facilitating a company posing risk to national security. BGI operates over 100 genetic collection laboratories in over 20 countries; an infrastructure declared by U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission as providing “genetic data to serve PRC ambitions to dominate biotech.”

The text of the BIOSECURE Act can be found here.