Contamination at CDC lab delayed rollout of coronavirus tests

The Washington Post ^ | 18 April 2020 | David Willman

[zeestephen]

This is a very long and very politicized article. However, it is the first article I have seen that explains in detail what the problems were. Summary - the CDC test resembles a widely used WHO designed test that locates two segments of the virus genome. The CDC added a third test. That test more precisely distinguished the SARS-One virus from the novel SARS-Two virus. That test worked perfectly. However, each test comes with "negative control samples" of highly purified water. If those samples turn positive, it means there is contamination somewhere in the test process. That is what happened to the CDC SARS test samples. A high percentage turned positive. The CDC test that resembled the WHO test always worked fine. The SARS test worked fine. But the SARS negative control sample kept failing.

[wastoute]

How many people were told they were “positive” based on these tests? How many have been contacted, if that happened? How many have been retested? Lots of questions here that deserve real answers. Government tends to avoid airing it’s dirty laundry. Should be interesting.

[a fool in paradise]

The CDC does not strike me as being a conservative organization. And the wash poo has to make excuses

[CincyRichieRich]

This needs to be verified. It’s from the Amazon Washington Post. If it is true which I doubt, the good doctor has been standing next to president Trump.

[ealgeone]

Just a bit of CYA in the CDC.

[nuconvert]

delayed for how long ?

[yldstrk]

Bassturds should have come right out and said so.

[semaj]

A criminal investigation needs to be conducted to determine how and why this happened. Things like this don’t happen by accident. I smell a rat.

[Lazamataz]

The CDC does not strike me as being a conservative organization. And the wash poo has to make excuses

Having worked there in the 2010's, I can tell you that conservatives are well-represented there, and that -- at least with Friedman -- the leadership was neutral on most political issues.

[AndyJackson]

Research and development is always a risky business and things don't work until they work because you are trying to figure out how to do something that you haven't done before. You cannot blame the people who had problems and eventually fixed them

But you can blame the bureaucrats who kept this under wraps as their personal monopoly. The only way you make things work is to figure out how to make them work and the more competent people working on it and freely exchanging information the better.

We need to fire everyone in the top 6 or 7 layers of every agency in DC. It's this way everywhere, actually. The mentality that "I'm in charge and you will stop whatever you are doing because this is my turf and I have the authority to stop you" runs rampant.

[John W]

Agree. What has went on the last few years is beyond amazing. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

[dfwgator]

CDC was too busy fighting Climate Change.

[zeestephen]

Re: How many people were told they were “positive” based on these tests?

Zero.

These failures happened during the initial roll out.

What failed was a “negative sample” test of the human SARS test.

The human SARS test was negative.

But - the “test” of the human SARS test was positive.

That meant the human SARS test was invalid.

[zeestephen]

Re: And the wash post has to make excuses

No.

WaPo is trying to blame Trump for the CDC failures.

[Yo-Yo]

I read the entire article looking for the “politically-charged” part. I couldn’t find one instance of Trump-bashing.

[zeestephen]

Re: delayed for how long?

WAPO makes it sound like the CDC tests were delayed for an entire month.

That was not my experience.

I followed the testing here in Washington state and for CA and OR during this whole time period.

There were hundreds of tests being reported every day.

The CDC was confident that two of their three tests were completely accurate, and as far as I know, they reported those accurate numbers every day.

[wastoute]

Interesting. I had not read that. Nothing I have read made it clear whether those tests had somehow inadvertently made contributions to the data. It is sort of reassuring they didn’t. At minimum the leadership of the CDC who for decades has pushed “gun control” should have their heads on the block.

[zeestephen]

Re: I couldn’t find one instance of Trump-bashing.

To a point, I agree.

They bash the CDC.

However, they keep reinforcing the idea that Trump is in charge of the CDC.

[cgbg]

But you can blame the bureaucrats who kept this under wraps as their personal monopoly.

The problems with bureaucracy get worse and worse as .gov gets larger.

There are very strong incentives for mid-level and senior-level bureaucrats to work to gain control over their turf--to keep outsiders out as new administrations come and go.

Many have learned the hard way that transparency and honesty is their enemy. Big .gov quickly turns into a bureaucratic quagmire--thus it has always been, thus it will always be...

[RetiredScientist]

The problem here was rushing. In my career I had to certify several chemical analysis protocols. This always involves running control samples and statistical analysis of the results. What was the CDC supposed to do? They did not have the luxury of not providing testing during the panic surrounding the early spread of covid-19. They did the best they could with what they had and they admitted to the problem when it was discovered and cleaned up the mess.