California’s new coronavirus testing laboratory won’t face sanctions for what state officials had called “significant deficiencies” that a whistleblower said threatened the accuracy of its results, authorities said Monday.
The Valencia Branch Laboratory was found to have problems with training and record-keeping but authorities couldn’t substantiate reports stemming from a whistleblower that the lab destroyed data or documents, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).
The problems found were “routinely found in laboratory inspections,” the department said.
“All deficiencies were addressed and there was no impact to the integrity of the tests processed at the laboratory” so sanctions won’t be imposed, the agency said.
The $25 million lab opened in October 2020 north of Los Angeles. In a preliminary report, the state said a fraction of 1% of the more than 1.5 million tests processed had problems.
The health department’s Laboratory Field Services division issued a notice last month of its intent to impose sanctions but just 10 days later the state renewed a $1.7-billion no-bid contract to operate the lab with Massachusetts-based diagnostics company PerkinElmer.
The sanctions threat was withdrawn earlier this month because authorities said PerkinElmer had corrected problems.
In a statement, PerkinElmer said it had worked with the state public health department to address concerns and was pleased that the laboratory had been found in “full compliance”...
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