Former HHS Official: CDC Lied to Trump, HHS Secretary About Ability to Make Wuhan Coronavirus Test
“And as a result the nation got weeks behind.”
Former assistant secretary of Human and Health Services (HHS) Chris Meekins told James Rosen, a Sinclair investigative reporter, that the CDC lied to President Trump and HHS Secretary Alex Azar about its ability to produce a Wuhan coronavirus test.
Trump and his administration have received a lot of criticism over tests. Now it looks like the anger should go to the CDC.
From WBMA:
In making the allegation, Chris Meekins, a former assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for preparedness and response, cited private discussions he has held in recent weeks with top federal officials and physicians and scientists employed in private-sector industries that are active in the anti-coronavirus effort. Meekins described his contacts on the White House Coronavirus Task Force as “friends,” some of whom he has known for many years.
“From my conversations with members of the task force, both inside and outside the administration,” Meekins told Sinclair in an exclusive interview, “The U.S. government, from Secretary Azar to the president relied on the Centers for Disease Control to produce a test; they failed….CDC said they would handle it….What we have found out is that these leaders at the CDC lied to both the HHS secretary and, by extension, the president. And as a result the nation got weeks behind.”
The mess began on February 3:
On February 3, CDC invoked public health emergency laws to petition the Food and Drug Administration to allow medical professionals to make use of unapproved medical and diagnostic products that included these test kits.
FDA issued its approval the next day. With that green light, a special unit of CDC, the International Reagent Resource (IRR), began shipping off the test kits. “Shortly thereafter,” CDC later disclosed, laboratories started noticing “performance issues” with the test kits, with the end result of laboratory personnel “not being able to verify the test performance.”
The core issue was said to be a defect “in the manufacturing of one of the reagents,” the center said. “CDC is remanufacturing the reagents with more robust quality control measures,” the center’s website noted, adding that new tests would be distributed “once this issue has been addressed.”
It makes you wonder “what if” the red tape and regulations did not exist because then the private sector could have easily developed tests to ship out. Why must we solely rely on the government for everything?
Unfortunately, it took this disaster to force the Trump administration to turn to the private sector:
More recently, [Head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony] Fauci has intimated publicly that the Trump administration’s experience with CDC in this urgent period was an unhappy one, with the transition to a greater role for the private sector reflecting the administration’s displeasure. “What we can say,” Fauci told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” last Sunday, is that “now that we have the private sector involved, we’re going to see an entirely different scene than we’ve seen the weeks previously, for sure.”
The CDC claimed it told Trump and his officials “to work with the private sector.” It also said:
“CDC rapidly developed a diagnostic test for CDC and the nation’s public health labs,” the statement said. “Today, more than 89 public health labs in 50 states and the District of Columbia are using the COVID-19 test.
“CDC encouraged our government partners to work with the private sector…We regret that some are being misinformed during a time when CDC and our U.S. government partners are working 24-7 to protect Americans, their families, and their communities.”
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Comments
Sounds to me like CDC overpromised. If so, they probably genuinely thought they could deliver. Shakedown for an analytical test is no joke.
Also, why would CDC be shipping physical kits? What were the problematic reagents? Why was CDC in the business of producing reagents?
Heads rolling?
No, not over promising, unless that is considered part of the Democrat Party Controlled CDC sabotage.
CDC = “Center for Democrat Control.”
From what I’m given to understand the problematic reagent was the negative control. In too many cases it actually was coming up positive. Which invalidated the test.
More treasonous behavior from career “public servants?”
Color me shocked!
I don’t know about treason, but I do know that they folded and caved under pressure. Those who are not bound by the pressure of market forces to remain employed are more likely to do just that.
At this point we’ve seen 3+ years of career bureaucrats, all of them hard-core Democrats, subverting the will of the duly-elected President of the United States. And now their games are threatening the livelihood and lives of millions of Americans.
And you can be sure our enemies are sizing us up right now. These are perilous times.
So yeah, what they’re doing amounts to treason in my book, and the standard penalties should apply.
The Black Face, White Robe Wear Democrat Governor of VA
just canceled all school for the rest of the year.
The year is 2020.
Rest of the school year (through Spring and Summer), not the rest of the calendar year.
Thanks, but I would not but it past the DEMS to do until Dec. 31st.
Just as likely, incompetence, possibility affirmative incompetence. Remember that Obama made it his mission to advance lots of affirmative types. To be fair, government is perfectly capable of hiring incompetents of every flavor.
Surprised his name is out there…shouldn’t he be covered by the Whistleblower protection act??
No, but I assume you’re just being snarky about Ciaramella.
Nothing gets by you, Milly.
Release all interagency emails, texts, meeting minutrs and memoranda regarding CDC test kit manufacturing. Do the same regarding lab quality assurance/inspections.
Get that stuff into the political ecosysyem now. Review inspector performace and fire the incompetents.
Not fire, shoot.
All of the lies and attacks are headed here:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/obama-national-security-advisor-susan-rice-retweets-call-to-remove-trump-from-office-now-over-coronavirus/
Make that read “Now it looks like the anger should go to the DEMOCRAT PARTY CONTROLLED CDC.”
FYI
“The Democrats are fomenting hysteria and a breakdown of the government in their ongoing efforts to drive President Trump from office.
For several days they have delayed passage of an emergency relief bill in the Senate, now they are using the COVID-19 Chinese coronavirus as a call to immediately remove Trump from office.
And that call has been retweeted by Susan Rice, former National Security Advisor and UN Ambassador for President Barack Obama.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/obama-national-security-advisor-susan-rice-retweets-call-to-remove-trump-from-office-now-over-coronavirus/
Surprised? I should hope not after 8 years under obama’s guidance they are to be expected to be part of the deep state. Every department that skywalker touched has become tainted with liberal nonsense. The new protocol in DC now is for the deep staters to lie or block anything that will make Trump look good or successful. The CDC has gotten so far from its original mandate that they are almost unrecognizable. Gun control? Bicycle helmets? BS! Get back to to your mandate.
Some guy said that his friends told him that they heard that someone lied about something.
Damn, that intelligence is weaker than the Steele dossier.
Oh……. He heard from the FBI and CIA then……
“Some guy” is a former assistant secretary of Human and Health Services.
And his friends are “members of the task force”.
Are you suggesting he is lying?
Lying, no. Overstating and misstating, quite possibly.
The CDC started off as a pretty good idea. Then it came political. After becoming political it became agenda laden. I do not believe that it will ever be a reliable, independent entity, again.
A similar putrification occurred at NOAA under some guy named Hanson, or something that sounds similar.
Until the federal government is purged from the Obama episode, the federal government can not be relied upon to operate without ulterior motive.
James Hansen was at NASA, not NOAA. And he left that job 7 years ago.
FYI
“Democrats dither, while Americans die.” – Tom Cotton
Senator Tom Cotton walks through some of the items the Democrats are demanding before they will allow economic relief to U.S. companies and workers. MUST WATCH
https://youtu.be/9v56tKHKlvE
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/03/23/must-watch-tom-cotton-outlines-nancy-pelosi-emergency-relief-scheme/
https://thedispatch.com/p/timeline-the-regulationsand-regulatorsthat
After emailing his application to the FDA, Greninger discovered that it was incomplete. It turned out that in addition to electronically filing it, he also had to print it out and mail a physical copy along with a copy burned onto a CD or saved to a thumb drive. That package had to be shipped off to FDA headquarters in Maryland. It was a strange and onerous requirement in 2020, but Greninger complied. He had no choice. On February 20, he overnighted the hard copies of his application to the FDA.
But submitting the physical application wasn’t the end of the process. Before granting the EUA, the FDA wanted Greninger to run his testing protocol against the MERS and SARS viruses:
This ^^^^.
When a certain entity declared an emergency, labs that were already doing Chinese virus testing, had to QUIT and get a new approval under additional tests and more stringent tests.
DElay, delay, delay!! In an emergency, they deliberately introduced more delay!
Lost and Found:
The United States has an attorney general named William Barr. He was last seen several weeks ago, blabbing through a tepid interview. He has not been seen since. William is pudgy in appearance, wears glasses, and can be spotting often running from anything to do with corruption on the part of the democrat party. If you see William, please contact the DOG – er, DOJ, attention Christopher Wray. (LOL!!!!!)
Ace had a post about what caused the testing failure by the CDC. He posted tweets about it and a link to twitchy with the links, which Brit Hume evidently retweeted or something.
Anyway, I read the whole thing. It was a cluster bomb for sure.
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2020/03/23/wait-so-orange-man-wasnt-bad-brit-hume-shares-thread-about-what-really-happened-with-coronavirus-testing-delay/
“CDC encouraged our government partners to work with the private sector” but it was regulatorily precluded that the private sector could do much, so CDC’s encouragement is worth zero.
Their promises are also worth zero.
Obama holdovers, Rod Rosenstein’s sister.
The dispatch article was very good.
This article by a Stanford Dr. has more details on how the CDC messed up the test. Key point was CDC chose technology that was 30 years, that only worked on their machine, and was not open about details on the test.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZaiDO87me4puBte-8VytcSRtpQ3PVpkK/view
The CDC refused admittance to an FDA person, Timothy Stenzel, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, for a day, Feb. 22, who then found contamination issues at the CDC lab.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/03/cdc-blocked-fda-official-premises-119684
The press would never use this story for “front page” discussion. (1) It’s someone actually speaking on the record and (2) it’s not anti-Trump.
Sounds like we need a new Dickey Amendment, this time withholding 100% of the CDC’s budget earmarked for disease control.