FEMA Ordered $10.2 Million in COVID-19 Testing Kits It's Now Warning States Not to Use
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has warned states not to use COVID-19 testing supplies it bought under a $10.2 million contract after a ProPublica investigation last week showed the vendor was providing contaminated and unusable mini soda bottles.
A FEMA spokeswoman said the agency is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to analyze test tubes filled with saline and sold to the government by Fillakit LLC, whose warehouse is near Houston.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we recommend this media not be used at this time,” spokeswoman Alex Bruner said.
ProPublica reported on June 18 that Fillakit was using plastic preforms, which are expanded with heat and pressure to become 2-liter soda bottles, to fulfill FEMA’s contract for testing supplies to be used by states. The bottles were shoveled into the warehouse, then filled with saline in what workers described as unsanitary conditions. Some of the states receiving the lab equipment told ProPublica that even if Fillakit’s tubes weren’t contaminated, they were simply too big to be used in lab machinery.
A later story in The Wall Street Journal raised similar allegations. The Journal first reported on Friday that the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is now looking into the contractor. Fillakit owner Paul Wexler previously told the Journal that allegations of unsanitary conditions were baseless and came from a disgruntled former employee.
https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/06/fema-ordered-102-million-covid-19-testing-kits-its-now-warning-states-not-use/166514/
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