Millions Of Dollars In Equipment At CDC Missing

[Kadie]

Aug 6, 2007 6:57 pm US/Pacific

Millions Of Dollars In Equipment At CDC Missing

(CBS News) WASHINGTON The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be expert at tracking disease. But the agency leaves something to be desired when it comes to tracking big-ticket items paid for with your tax dollars.

CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson exclusively obtained a 90-page list of thousands of pieces of scientific equipment and property — all bought by taxpayers, and all of it missing in action.

The list includes 35 centrifuges, each costing up to $41,800; five DNA sequencers and gene analyzers costing up to $111,000 apiece; and a $200,000 spectrometer used for analyzing samples. Nobody knows where they are.

Also unaccounted for are high-end microscopes, copiers, dozens of Land Cruisers and 4x4's, a John Deere tractor and backhoe, and 5,000 computers.

"Where did they go? How do we find them? Who's in charge over there?" asks Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.

more...
http://cbs13.com/topstories/topstories_story_218215834.html

[Mojorabbit]

1. This makes me nervous

gene sequence analyzers?

[lonestarnot]

2. ebay... what bullshit this is! Certainly an inside job.

So, where? Interesting.

[Telly Savalas]

3. I confess. I took them...

but I've used the stuff to make the most powerful bong known to man.

[superkia]

4. I would wonder if they were ever purchased?

I remember some years ago, I think it was Dan Rather on Lettermans show? He had done a report on the governments use of our tax dollars and he had a list of some things that they had supposedly purchased. I remember one was a $2.00 glass ashtray that had an American eagle engraved in the bottom that cost them $500.00 a piece. It was a way for the government to have a paper trail of some kind. It didn't prove to me they paid that much, it just told me thats how much of our tax dollars were gone and most was probably in someones pocket. Maybe the machines were never even purchased?

Are their any honest people in high ranking positions anymore?

[struggle4progress]

5. Large expensive scientific equipment is sometimes stolen from such places.

I recall news of an extensive heist many years ago.

But I think it equally likely that BushCo lackies threw the stuff in the garbage as part of their "sabotage every federal agency" philosophy

[Booster]

6. Someone explain to me why in the Hell republicans want to

bankrupt their own country? Well, actually it's not just them - IT'S EVERYBODY IN WASHINGTON D.C.

[sce56]

7. To think they charged me $0.04 for a missing Allen Wrench of course the cost of the Statement of

Charges was about $50.00 to get $0.04 cents out of my pay check back in the 80's Yet the CDC can't find some one to put the blame on for this! I hear they are hitting up soldiers for missing items after being medevaced from Iraq.

[Kadie]

8. Wow, I had not heard that one yet.

I hear they are hitting up soldiers for missing items after being medevaced from Iraq.

However, I am not surprised.