Chicago Tribune - October 29, 2004
David Heinzmann

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Illinois Department of Public Health are among the agencies investigating a laboratory at Raani Corp. in Bedford Park. The lab was discovered when a routine fire inspection Oct. 15 raised the suspicions of municipal code inspectors in the heavily industrial southwest suburb.

The village's fire and building inspectors found a laboratory the company had built inside the factory without permits, Bedford Park building coordinator Steve Edwards said. When they searched the room they found packages of HIV diagnostic kits and a locked refrigerator that contained vials that were labeled as HIV-positive serum, Edwards said.

FDA Deputy Regional Director Andrew Bonanno said the investigation is ongoing, and Edwards said the U.S. attorney's office has asked village officials not to comment further.

State health officials said it is not yet clear what kind of biological material was stored in the refrigerator in the plant.

Raani Corp. "has voluntarily given up the things that were labeled HIV," said Illinois Heath Department spokesman Tom Schaefer. "But I don't know if anybody knows yet what it actually is."

Raani Chief Operating Officer Tehsel Dhaliwal said the material was "samples" used for "quality control," to test the effectiveness of the kits, but denied that there was any active virus in the factory. He could not explain what the samples contained, but acknowledged that the laboratory has been placed under quarantine.

Raani, known for making skin lotions and shampoos on contract for other companies, is owned by businessman Rashid Chaudary, one of the Democratic Party's top donors during the Clinton administration.

Dhaliwal said the company was manufacturing the kits for a client company and referred questions to two men--a Maryland infectious disease expert and an Oregon-based former executive at a company that manufactured similar kits.

But Dr. Waheed Khan, the former head of infectious disease research at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., denied having any connection to the HIV kits. Khan said he had visited the factory, but his only connection was as a personal friend of Chaudary.

The Oregon businessman has not returned more than a dozen phone messages left over the last week at the phone number Dhaliwal provided. Dhaliwal said the sample material that officials have said may be HIV-positive was shipped to the factory by the man.

The FDA maintains a list of companies licensed to manufacture HIV diagnostic tests. Raani is not on the list, but Dhaliwal said the company did not need such licensing because they were not selling the kits in the U.S.

FDA officials agreed that a license is not required if products are not sold domestically, but they said they were exploring several issues at the plant.

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