September 8, 2022 - Washington - Senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla (both D-Calif.) have called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to invest in federal laboratory capabilities on the West Coast. The request comes in the wake of a recent push by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to reorganize the agency based on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We saw early in the COVID-19 pandemic that CDC’s reliance on one reference laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, limited the agency’s capacity and agility,” the senators wrote in a letter to Director Walensky.

“We strongly support your efforts to strengthen the agency’s capacity to detect and respond to rare and emerging diseases before new pandemics emerge. Establishing a federal laboratory presence on the West Coast will be a significant improvement to CDC’s current capability.”

Full text of the letter is available here and below:

September 6, 2022

Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky
Director
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30329

Dear Dr. Walensky:

We applaud your efforts to review the performance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the COVID-19 pandemic and institute reforms to better prepare it for future public health threats. As part of this effort, we recommend building federal laboratory capabilities on the West Coast in order to improve the agency’s readiness to diagnose rare or novel diseases and more swiftly respond to public health threats. 

We saw early in the COVID-19 pandemic that CDC’s reliance on one reference laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, limited the agency’s capacity and agility. For example, after the first CDC COVID-19 test kits were found to be faulty, all patient samples had to be sent to Atlanta for testing. The substantial delays in getting test results back to states could have been mitigated if the agency had additional capabilities on the West Coast, providing more time for health measures to be put in place to slow COVID-19’s spread.

As you know, research published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences estimates that the likelihood of another global pandemic during our children’s lifetime is high and the risk of occurrence is likely to increase three-fold in the next few decades. Climate change is also increasing the risk of emerging infectious diseases that threaten human health and livelihood. 

We strongly support your efforts to strengthen the agency’s capacity to detect and respond to rare and emerging diseases before new pandemics emerge. Establishing a federal laboratory presence on the West Coast will be a significant improvement to CDC’s current capability. 

Thank you for your consideration of this priority, and we look forward to continue working with you on this pressing issue.

Sincerely,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator 

Alex Padilla
United States Senator 
Source: Senator Dianne Feinstein