How Has One of the U.K.’s Biggest Covid Testing Labs – Exposed by Panorama as Ignoring Protocols Designed to Prevent Cross-Contamination – Been Given a Clean Bill of Health?
We’re publishing an original piece today by Jacinta Taylor, a freelance investigative journalist, about the aftermath of the Panorama investigation into biosecurity lapses at the Lighthouse lab in Milton Keynes, one of seven Lighthouse laboratories that processes PCR tests. Longtime readers will recall that we ran a piece about the risk of cross-contamination at this lab last November by Dr. Julian Harris, a virologist who briefly worked at the facility. He was so concerned by what he witnessed he called in the Health and Safety Executive who identified five material breaches of health and safety legislation at the lab that included inadequate health and safety training for staff and employees working too closely together. The reason this matters is because these lapses can lead to negative test samples being contaminated by positive samples, thereby leading to false positives.
Dr. Harris also complained to the DHSC, but according to him the complaint was never adequately investigated and he also expressed concern that the security breaches exposed by Panorama weren’t properly followed up, even though the DHSC issued a statement to the programme saying: “We take concerns extremely seriously and we will be fully investigating all the allegations that have been made.”
I asked Jacinta to see if she could find out what investigation had been carried out at the behest of the DHSC, who had carried it out and what the conclusions of the investigating team were. She did eventually get an answer from a senior medial relations officer at the DHSC, but it was vague and unsatisfactory.
We have done our best to follow-up the Panorama programme, but the Daily Sceptic lacks the resources to mount a proper investigation, even with readers’ generous donations. It’s a pity no mainstream media publication has pursued this story (although the Independent ran something based on Dr. Harris’s revelations last October). The governments of the four nations of the United Kingdom have relied on PCR testing data to base decisions on whether and when to lock down and nearly every MSM publication faithfully reproduces the daily positive cases from the Government’s coronavirus dashboard, so you’d think they would be a little more curious about the reliability of this data, particularly in light of the lapses flagged up by Dr. Harris and Panorama. But apparently not.
Another reason to properly investigate these failings and whether the DHSC has done anything to make sure they’ve been addressed is that vast sums of public money have been spent on building and developing these labs, which are run in partnership with private firms including the pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca.
Please do read Jacinta’s piece – and if any journalist wants to follow up this story, please get in touch.
