Government watchdog: CDC has largely abandoned original mission

WASHINGTON (SBG) - It’s been a question central to the coronavirus crisis -- why, more than three months in, are we still not up to speed on COVID-19 testing.

“Right now...you know, we're doing about we're doing about 1.5- 2 million per week, we probably should get up to twice that,” saidDr. Anthony Fauci, Director, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases saidduring the National Academy of Sciences annual meeting.

President Trump insists the United States is at the top whenit comes to testing and just laid out a new plan to expand it even more

Still, it took the Centers for Disease Control weeks to get testing kits out, and in February now often referred to as "the lost month," just 352 COVID-19 tests were processed by government labs, many of the initial batch producing inaccurate results.

"This is their core responsibility and I think my any measure they basically failed in their initial assessment,” said Peter Schweizer, President of the Government Accountability Institute in an interview Tuesday. He said the reason is simple: for years, the CDC has strayed from its original mission - which is to prevent the spread of communicable diseases, adding a host of other responsibilities, likePlayground safetyand motorcycle safety.

If you peruse the CDC budget from the last few years, you’ll see funding for agriculture forestry and fishing as well as and mining research.

“When you’re dealing with an organization that is supposed to be at the front lines at the epicenter of fighting diseases when that disease actually comes, ..we are woefully unprepared. It’s not just resources being diverted. It’s what is your core focus and the attention of your leadership," Schweizer said.

Last month the Director of the Centers for Disease Control was called to testify at hearing on Capitol Hill. He blamed part of the slow response on a lack of adequate funding and resources.

“We’ve under-invested in public health labs. (there aren’t enough people) there's not enough equipment, there's not enough people, there's not enough internal capacity, there's no search capacity," saidRobert Redfield, CDC Director, during the March 10 hearing.

By all measures testing and all aspects of the response have improved, but Schweizer remains concerned that as with many government agencies, this one grew too big and added too many functions, to fulfill its original mission.