Source: United States Senator for Florida Marco Rubio
Thermo Fisher Scientific, a U.S.-based company, is reported to have sold DNA kits and replacement parts for sequencers to occupation police forces in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). This equipment was likely used by Beijing to collect Tibetan DNA to enable mass surveillance and human rights abuses.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined bipartisan and bicameral members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) in sending a letter to Marc Casper, Thermo Fisher’s President and Chief Executive Officer, to express concern that his company’s products may have contributed to the Chinese Communist Party’s abuse of the Tibetan people. Rubio was joined by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), as well as U.S. Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Jim McGovern (D-MA), in signing the letter.
The letter posed a series of questions for Mr. Casper to answer about use of Thermo Fisher’s products in China, including whether the company would consider a “blanket prohibition on all sales of its products to the People’s Republic of China in order to assure its shareholders and the American public that its products cannot be used in the commitment of human rights abuses in that country?”
Flashback. Thermo Fisher is a repeat offender. In 2018, Rubio confronted Thermo Fisher for selling DNA equipment in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Following Rubio’s letter, Thermo Fisher halted their sales in XUAR.
Want more information? Read the full text of the letter here.