'Worse Than Covid': Expert's Dire Warning Over Toxic Fungus Feared Smuggled Into US From China

Last Updated:June 08, 2025, 14:42 IST

The US Department of Justice said the crop fungus -- Fusarium graminearum -- is a dangerous biological pathogen with the potential to be used as an agricultural terrorism weapon

Samples of a pathogen identified by the US Department of Justice as Fusarium graminearum, a fungus it said was classified in scientific literature as a potential agroterrorism weapon. (Image: Reuters)

A top expert on China, who has warned of a potential agroterrorism threat after a toxic fungus was allegedly smuggled into the US, said this could be “something worse" than coronavirus.

Author of China Is Going To War, Gordon G Chang has suggested catastrophic consequences if the US does not sever relations with China over this incident. “The only way to stop this is to sever relations with China. And I know people think that’s drastic, but we are being overwhelmed," Chang told Fox News.

Agricultural experts, however, doubted the claims that the crop fungus is a threat as it is already widespread in the US and poses little food safety risk. In a report published by news agency Reuters, they said it will be ineffective as an agricultural terrorism weapon and can be managed by fungicides, resistant wheat strains, and testing.

Two Chinese nationals have been accused of smuggling Fusarium graminearum into the US for research. According to an FBI criminal complaint, Zunyong Liu, 34, a researcher in China, brought the fungus into the US while visiting his girlfriend, Yunqing Jian, 33, in July 2024.

The Department of Justice said the crop fungus is a dangerous biological pathogen with the potential to be used as an agricultural terrorism weapon. In a statement it said it causes “head blight" in some crops and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses globally each year.

‘XI JINPING TALKS ABOUT GOING TO WAR ALL THE TIME’

Chang told Fox News that the couple “should be sent to Guantanamo" – the infamous US military facility linked to abuse and torture after the 9/11 terror attacks. He said this amounts to China waging war against the US.

He said this fungus is “perhaps something worse" than Covid-19, and the US is going to eventually “get hit really hard". There is widespread controversy over the origin of SARS-CoV-2, which caused the Covid-19 pandemic, as many experts say it was engineered in a Chinese laboratory.

“The only way to stop this is to sever relations with China. And I know people think that’s drastic, but we are being overwhelmed. We are going to get hit eventually. We are going to get hit really hard, not just with Covid, not just with fentanyl, but perhaps with something worse," he was quoted.

Chang further said Chinese President Xi Jinping talks about going to war with the US “all the time" and is “mobilising Chinese society to go to war".

“In May 2019, the state media People’s Daily, the most authoritative publication in China, carried a landmark editorial that declared a people’s war on us. We are Americans, so we think we are entitled to ignore the propaganda of hostile regimes. But for a communist party, that phrase has great resonance. What they are doing with their strident anti-Americanism is creating a justification to strike our country. This means the couple, for instance, should be sent to Guantanamo," he was quoted.

He added: “It was an attack on the United States at a time when China thought it was at war with us. Xi Jinping talks about going to war all the time, and he is mobilising all of Chinese society to go to war. So we can lose our country, even though we are the far stronger nation because we are not defending ourselves with the vigour and the determination that is necessary."

Explaining how Americans in all 50 states received “unsolicited" seeds from China in 2020, he alleged that it was an attempt to plant invasive species into the US.

‘AS A WEAPON…PRETTY INEFFECTIVE’

Agriculture experts interviewed by Reuters said the fungus has been in the US for more than a century. They said it can be prevented by spraying pesticides, and is only dangerous if regularly ingested and, that too, in large quantities.

“As a weapon, it would be a pretty ineffective one," Jessica Rutkoski, a crop sciences professor, wheat breeder and geneticist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told Reuters.

Rutkoski and other researchers said extensive testing for the toxin of the fungus, widespread use of fungicides and the difficulty of intentionally creating an infection with the pathogen will make it a clumsy weapon.

Experts said US farmers have been battling the fungus, which causes Fusarium head blight usually known as “scab", since the 1900s. Reuters reported that the fungus infects wheat, barley and other grains during rainy years. A toxic byproduct of the fungus called vomitoxin is tested for and tightly controlled by grain elevators where farmers sell their crops, the report said.

They further said only negligible amounts of vomitoxin make it into the bread, pasta and cookies consumed in the US, which is far below levels that will cause human illnesses. “We have a long history of managing epidemics of scab," Andrew Friskop, professor and plant pathologist at North Dakota State University, was quoted.

Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)

News world 'Worse Than Covid': Expert's Dire Warning Over Toxic Fungus Feared Smuggled Into US From China