In a sign of growing tension among the Trump administration’s health agencies, officials are expressing frustration that a top scientist was initially rebuffed when attempting to visit the CDC in Atlanta last month to help coordinate the government’s stalled coronavirus testing, two individuals with knowledge of the episode told POLITICO.
Timothy Stenzel, who is the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, was made to wait overnight on the weekend of Feb. 22 — as senior health department officials negotiated his access in a series of calls — before Centers for Disease Control granted him permission to be on campus. Stenzel’s visit had been expected, the individuals said.
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Stenzel later found evidence of lab contamination, which he reported to HHS officials and may have contributed to the coronavirus lab-test delays and other problems.
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The CDC had spent days reassuring HHS leaders that the lab tests were imminent, even as delays prevented their delivery. The delays prevented many Americans, who didn’t fit the CDC’s strict criteria, from being tested for coronavirus. CDC initially limited testing to people who had recently traveled to China or had close contact with a confirmed case and were also symptomatic.
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“Contamination is one possible explanation but there are others, and I can’t comment on what is an ongoing investigation,” Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on a Tuesday conference call.
HHS has begun an investigation into the possible contamination of coronavirus tests and is asking a team of non-CDC scientists to probe the lab-test defect.
Do you think that Rod Rosenstein’s sister will be held accountable for the possible deaths of Americans due to the CDC’s actions? Another “on going” investigation by the Federal government.
We keep hearing rhetoric about how this is the best and greatest country in the world. Even if thst is true, a claim I find dubious these days, the response and handling of this virus and the imminent crisis is not the best in the world. Look at S Korea. They’re testing everyone and taking agressive action. The US, wash your hands and get your ass to work because the “See EE Oh” has a boat payment to make.