14 ms·

In Pursuit of PPE

300 points by tectonic 7y ago

KorematsuFred 7y ago
Why did the doctor even speak to FBI,DHS agents in first place ? Did they have a warrant ? Day by day it is getting harder to understand who are the good guys these days.
- hitpointdrew 7y ago
  It's been pretty clear for awhile now.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- detaro 7y ago
  The Defense Production Act gives the federal government pretty far reaching powers to control and seize goods needed to fight covid-19. If they claim you're hoarding, they can seize it, AFAIK without a warrant.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    This is why I was surprised there was so much push by Dems to invoke the DPA under the current admin: misuse was probable.
1996 7y ago
Something to remember for whoever thinks the government needs more power in time of crisis.
- CharlesW 7y ago
  What new power(s) are enabling the current administration to do this that previous administrations didn't have?
  - SteveNuts 7y ago
    I think OP was saying don't let another Patriot Act happen in the wake of all of this (my interpretation).
    - CharlesW 7y ago
      Ah, I thought OP had something specific in mind for this case. Thanks for connecting that for me instead of just downvoting.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  Or the need for a working supply chain. It's a dysfunction on a couple of levels here, not just in the power of the government - if it was able and willing to provide supply this wouldn't be an issue at all. Instead hospitals are scrounging on their own.
- pjc50 7y ago
  It's not really about "power" as a one-axis variable; I don't see even the most anti-government people in the US campaigning to reduce the government's nuclear weapons stockpile, and you don't get much more power than that. It's about power without accountability.
treis 7y ago
Boooo click bait.
thecolorblue 7y ago
It's not the seizing that bothers me. It's that I have not seen any (credible) stories of where the seized PPE goes.
- hitpointdrew 7y ago
  No audit trail whatsoever, disgusting.
- throwaway894345 7y ago
  Are any congresspeople pissed about this? Can't they demand an account of where the PPE is going?
  - paulmd 7y ago
    They can demand but Trump won't answer subpoenas. Whatcha gonna do, the constitutional answer to a rogue president bucking congressional oversight is impeachment but the Senate already made it clear there's no possible act that could get them to convict.
    - woah 7y ago
      This sounds like a political opinion, but every part of it is a simple, commonly acknowledged fact
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    Lawmakers don't have any actual power if the agencies resist them. One great example of this was during the initial travel bans, both lawmakers and judges were unable to get CBP/DHS to actually comply with orders because the government employees working for those agencies simply ignored them. When that happens the only real option a judge has is to send federal marshals out to enforce an order (as far as I know), and there's no guarantee the marshals will listen.
    - xnyan 7y ago
      >Lawmakers don't have any actual power This is not true at all. Congress controls the purse. CBP can ignore all they want, but they would probably be more pliable if they were not getting paid. Also "...all civil officers of the United States" can be removed directly by the Senate. In practice this is limited to heads of agencies at the lowest but that is just a practice, anyone executing federal power is applicable.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hitpointdrew 7y ago
Mass. Governor Charlie Baker coordinated with BJ's Wholesale to get a shipment of 2M N95 masks...they were all "sized" (stolen) by the Feds. The governor then coordinated with Patriots owner Robert Kraft to use the patriots private jet to go get 1M masks. Thank goodness to the Kraft family and their support in this situation. There has been 0 transparency or audit trail with where these masks are going that the Feds are seizing. If I were Charlie Baker I would call up the National Guard and tell them to retrieve the masks that were sized by any means necessary. This is an absolute disgrace, and blatant theft by the Feds.
- VectorLock 7y ago
  This I think is still the wildest story out of this entire ordeal.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- cm2187 7y ago
  The same happened all over europe. European countries seizing equipment in transit toward other european countries. Even France did it (despite Macron's insistance on European cooperation).
  - ilikehurdles 7y ago
    Just to point out a distinction, this more similar to the EU as an entity seizing shipments headed to Germany or France rather than another country within Europe taking them.
  - Yoric 7y ago
    To clarify: the shipment for Sweden was eventually released by France. This was clearly a snafu, but it was eventually resolved.
    - cm2187 7y ago
mfer 7y ago
The title is misleading. The FBI and DHS are seizing shipments of PPE. > Before we could send the funds by wire transfer, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived, showed their badges, and started questioning me. No, this shipment was not headed for resale or the black market. The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. Turns out there is a black market for PPE right now. The FBI should be investigating odd sales, like the one described in the article. Some of them will be black market dealing taking PPE away from hospitals that need it. This is the part that bothers me... > But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure. So, after they showed it was for a hospital and the FBI (who investigates federal crimes like black market deals) was satisfied. The the DoH wants to step in and redirect until a congressional rep steps in. That's the odd part to me.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  > The the DoH wants to step in and redirect until a congressional rep steps in. That's the odd part to me. Not the DoH, DHS, Homeland Security. Whose oversight of the COVID-19 management is being coordinated with Jared Kushner. It has been heavily implied, sometimes outright stated, that some of these "redirections" are going to states who are "being nice" to the President. I would be entirely unsurprised to learn that others are going to "battleground" states (in the election sense, not the disease sense). Or to "government authorized private contractors" for resale (with its own due sense of irony).
  - WorkingDead 7y ago
    The more likely scenario is that the government is inefficient and you have multiple agencies chasing the same issue and not talking to each other.
    - jasonlotito 7y ago
grayed-down 7y ago
Strange story. Good outcome. A lot of missing information.
csense 7y ago
LA Times originally reported government seizures of PPE weeks ago. In separate news from a different source (PBS Newshour), some hospitals are reporting protective gear from state and federal stockpiles that is completely unusable: masks 10 years past its expiration date, masks for children, masks that are rotting [1]. My guess: These two stories are related. The government had enough masks / PPE on paper, but never actually checked it was usable. No one intended this to happen, it just sort of fell through the cracks, and all the paperwork said everything was OK. Now that huge amounts of physical masks are actually needed, they can't get by anymore on paperwork that doesn't reflect reality. The stockpile probably has a (not officially acknowledged) main purpose of protecting the essential parts of government if there's an outbreak: soldiers, intelligence, Congress, etc. Since people actually started physically checking the masks in government stockpiles, behind the scenes bureaucrats have been panicking because they suddenly found out there won't be enough PPE to protect the government, and the market's so tight and the supply chain is so stretched that they just can't simply buy it, there's way too much demand. So they've decided they need to rebuild the stockpile. The government's reasoning is probably that what really matters is that the "people who matter" in government have what they need. If civilian doctors get sick, and some of them die, that's (seen by government bureaucrats as) an acceptable price to pay to be sure the government itself is protected. This sounds pretty horrible, but I'm not sure they're completely wrong. For example, what if Russia invades Europe or China lands troops in California next week, the US Army starts to deploy in response, but gets paralyzed by a huge coronavirus outbreak and all available PPE's already been used? Seems to me like this kind of ethical question should go through the public political process. I'm not sure why they aren't simply honest about why they're doing it. Trying to hide it suggests some bad motive. Maybe it's to hide the original screwup of not checking the stockpile properly. Maybe they have OPSEC concerns about not tipping our adversaries off that this would be a great week to start a war, since the US Military's effectiveness is temporarily crippled by lack of masks. Anyone know how to file an FOIA request to try to force the government to tell us what's happening to seized masks? [1] https://youtu.be/A4YZxctxh8w?t=159 https://youtu.be/A4YZxctxh8w?t=159
- paulmd 7y ago
  > My guess: The government had enough masks / PPE on paper, but never actually checked it was usable. No one intended this to happen, it just sort of fell through the cracks, and all the paperwork said everything was OK. No, Republicans in congress very specifically cut the budgets that were supposed to be used to rotate out expired materials. It wasn't accidental, it's a case of refusing to pay the insurance bill and then acting shocked when you're in a car crash. It also took a big hit from the sequestration, like everything else in the government, but the budget was already underfunded to begin with because DHHS was associated with Obamacare and Republicans wouldn't approve any spending there. They did the best they could with the money they had and focused on drugs instead of things like masks, which have a harder "cut off" for efficacy and were seen as easier to acquire in the heat of a crisis. But masks eventually have an expiration date too, and if you never rotate them they will eventually go bad too. https://www.propublica.org/article/us-emergency-medical-stockpile-funding-unprepared-coronavirus https://www.propublica.org/article/us-emergency-medical-stoc... > After using up the swine flu emergency funds, the Obama administration tried to replenish the stockpile in 2011 by asking Congress to provide $655 million, up from the previous year’s budget of less than $600 million. Responding to swine flu, which the CDC estimated killed more than 12,000 people in the United States over the course of a year, had required the largest deployment in the stockpile’s history, including nearly 20 million pieces of personal protective equipment and more than 85 million N95 masks, according to a 2016 report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. > “We recognized the need for replenishment of the stockpile and budgeted about a 10% increase,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who served as the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration. “That was rejected by the Republican House.” > Republicans took over the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterms on the Tea Party wave of opposition to the landmark 2010 health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The new House majority was intent on curbing government spending, especially at HHS, which administered Obamacare. ... > “It just was never funded at the level that was needed to purchase new products, to replace expiring products and to invest in what we now know are the really necessary ancillary products,” said Dara Lieberman, director of government relations at the Trust for America’s Health, a nonpartisan public health advocacy and research group.
Yoric 7y ago
The title is somewhat clickbait-ish. The FBI and DHS have raided a shipment, which they thought was not meant for a hospital. Once they understood it was meant for a hospital, they let it flow.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  The DHS still attempted to seize it even though it was for a hospital, until a lawmaker intervened. You're correct that the FBI let it through.
  - notyourday 7y ago
    Prioritization. Just because it is a hospital that wants to get them does not mean that it was that specific hospital had a higher priority on PPE at that specific time. Today an unfilled request for PPE from Mount Sinai has a higher priority than an unfilled request for PPE in Boston. Mount Sinai therefore would win against Boston. Boston would win against a small hospital in Erie, PA.
    - larkost 7y ago
      You imply that there is some list of prioritization out there. President Trump has repeatedly maintained that the Federal Government is not in charge of organizing who has what, and that the States should be managing this. Given this lack of control (or even central organizing), who exactly would be determining who has the priority that you are asserting?
      - notyourday 7y ago
        The Admiral Polowczyk whom they brought to run the logistics on coronavirus task force said there's absolutely a prioritization list based on "hotness" of the zone. He said it himself to camera during the briefing number 21(Edit: not 21, it had to be earlier - it was within a few days of the NYC lock down. Maybe that Monday ). They spent the first week implementing/adapting some DoD system that allowed them to track the pipeline of orders and goods matching the orders to the individual hospital level and if necessary redirect from one to another.
tuna-piano 7y ago
1. Weeks ago (and still?), tons of people were complaining that the federal government should take over procurement and distribution of medical supplies. 2. Now, the federal government is taking over some procurement and distribution of medical supplies. More complaints on this method. There are certainly legitimate complaints to be had with state procurement, federal procurement, communication gaps, problems with distribution priority, etc... but I'm left confused as to the shock that the federal government is seizing supplies? Isn't that what people wanted when they asked for federal government managed procurement+distribution?
- kec 7y ago
  If this is a serious question: People wanted the Federal government to act as a single purchaser to source and transparently distribute material to the states, leveraging efficiencies of scale and a view of the whole situation. No one was asking for the federal government to seize already purchased material and do things with it with zero transparency or accountability.
  - Natsu 7y ago
    Well, they didn't actually seize anything here, they figured out that some shipment from China was going to hospitals instead of being intended for resale, then let those hospitals have it once things were straightened out. The only question is how this transaction got wrongly flagged to begin with.
    - coleca 7y ago
      From the article it sounds like it was a pretty clandestine operation to begin with. He admits to paying 5x the normal prices for the masks, was picking them up in trucks marked as food service, taking different routes, etc. This is exactly the kind of shady transaction the government should be investigating. It could have just as easily been some price speculator buying those masks for all the Feds knew. Once they were assured it wasn't they let it go. The speculation about DHS was a little vague. The doctor explains at the end of this short interview that he was actually appreciative of the FBI for intervening and why they did: https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/04/20/dr-andrew-artenstein-fbi-questions-masks-purchase-intv-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/coronavirus/ https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/04/20/dr-andrew-arten...
howmayiannoyyou 7y ago
Consider the possibility that Chinese made PPE is being withheld from Red States to undermine and discredit Republican/Trump support; and is being facilitated for use in Blue States (eg. Illinois) to shore up support for Democratic politicians.
- op00to 7y ago
  Ok. I did. Now what should I consider, that if my aunt had wheels she'd be a tea cart?
  - freshbob 7y ago
    She'd clearly be a bicycle, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-RfHC91Ewc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-RfHC91Ewc
    - op00to 6y ago
      That guy is brutal!
  - battery_cowboy 7y ago
    I'm going to use this in the future, thanks, it's a great sentence.
m0zg 7y ago
HN: the situation where procurement is local is dumb, feds should be distributing PPE Feds: (attempt to) seize PPE to distribute it elsewhere HN: The situation where feds seize PPE is dumb, you should be able to procure locally Which is it folks? What's the set up that will satisfy your wishes? Meanwhile a quote from gov Cuomo today: "I think the president is right when he says the states should lead", regarding testing.
- jasonlotito 7y ago
  This is what you are saying: HN: You should have been wearing a seat belt when the car crashed. Feds: Puts on the seat belt after the car crashed. HN: That is dumb. Which is it folks? What seat belt state will satisfy your wishes? The fed has dropped the ball already. It needs to show more leadership going forward. The time for the fed handling PPE procurement and distribution has already passed though, at least in the way they are doing it. The only thing they are doing is taking PPE that is needed now and keeping it away from those that expect to get it.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    The fed so far has made it so we have enough PPE, beds, and ventilators, and brought down the projected death count down more than an order of magnitude. Our test throughput in hotspots far exceeds that of any other country. If that's "failed" I'd like you to elucidate what "success" would look like to you.
    - jasonlotito 7y ago
      > The fed so far has made it so we have enough PPE We don't have enough PPE. This has been well reported. That's it. Full stop. > If that's "failed" I'd like you to elucidate what "success" would look like to you. Not having to lie about being successful would be a start. Also, having in place the things that were dismantled by this administration that they are looking to put back into place in the middle of a crisis. It's building a fire truck after a fire started because you didn't need it before hand. It's idiotic.
  - 7y ago
goda90 7y ago
Someone close to me has contacts and friends in Hong Kong. One offered to send him a box of masks for free(I think just surgical masks, not N95). The plan was to give a few to friends/family, and his wife's coworkers, who are in-home caretakers for the elderly. The rest would be donated to a hospital or similar. But the box never arrived. It hit customs and was seized.
magwa101 7y ago
Of course, the shakedown requires restriction of supplies right?
blhack 7y ago
It sounds like federal agencies are stepping in to investigate and prevent price gouging. Good. That is their job. If this wasn't happening, there would be even less PPE available for hospitals. Of course when you are talking about something at the scale of what is happening in the country right now, there are going to be imperfections in the system, and those imperfections will get reported on. That should not be taken as indicative of the state of things overall, but merely as exception reporting. The news aspect of event has been incredibly depressing. There are commonly outright lies being presented as if they are valid representations of things that are happening in the world. Sometimes that is simply a part of life, and the consequences are relatively (to this) minimal, but in this situation, this type of reporting is getting people killed.
- xnyan 7y ago
  >It sounds like federal agencies are stepping in to investigate and prevent price gouging This is not correct. There is overwhelming evidence that the federal government is seizing private supplies of masks for redistribution. I find accounts like this quite chilling, note that the federal agents don't dispute that these are the property of a hospital, it takes (political)force to keep their stuff: "After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure."[1] 1) https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025
- pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y ago
  There is no federal law on price gouging. Despite the increase of government enforcement activity, not every price increase constitutes price gouging (no matter how abnormal the price seems). State laws are toothless and many resign their regulation in the face of an event that lasts for 30+ days, as it accurately suggests the problem isn't going away if it hasn't by then and is probably bigger than the state. The market has expanded and there is a war for resources. The price is the market price and is a necessary market signal. Any 2-bit lawyer can defend this now, enjoy. Two the state's attorney general, don't waste public resources on this. The governments fully capable of creating a price ceiling and subsidizing on top of that. The market signals are abundantly clear and are a necessary motivating factor to solve the supply constraints.
mistersquid 7y ago
This headline is somewhat misleading as the shipment in the OP was not seized. > The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure. I remained nervous and worried on the long drive back, feelings that did not abate until midnight, when I received the call that the PPE shipment was secured at our warehouse.
fc_barnes 7y ago
The Republican Party is a criminal conspiracy.
pdonis 7y ago
The title of this thread should be changed. The actual article title is: "In Pursuit of PPE". The actual article does not talk about any PPE being seized by FBI or DHS. It talks about FBI agents questioning the author when he was inspecting samples of a shipment of PPE before authorizing purchase, and about his learning that DHS was considering redirecting the PPE. But it does not say any PPE was actually seized.
- dang 7y ago
  Thanks, we've reverted it. Submitted title was "The FBI and DHS are seizing shipments of PPE intended for hospitals". Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22926309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22926309 about not doing that.
  - tectonic 7y ago
    Noted, thank you.
    - dang 7y ago
      Appreciated! Don't forget that the very same information can be super helpful if you add it as a first comment to the thread. Then you also have more space to explain things such as why it matters, or where in the article it's found, or what else might be important in the article, or related links.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
damon_c 7y ago
The real question is, will the US voters living in the states which are recipients of the seized PPE be _more_ or _less_ likely to vote for the perpetrators of such malfeasance.
f0ok 7y ago
Nurse here. As the epidemic started to get international, I went online and bought a couple boxes of N95 masks, gloves, glasses, and Tyveks. I went to the store and got a few litres of grain alcohol. I told my friends and family this would become a pandemic. They did not believe me. These items were still easy to find two months ago. What I cannot comprehend is why was I preparing for this when most institutions were not taking this opportunity to do the same.
- rubidium 7y ago
  I question the same. Either hospital supply chains were incompetent or underfunded (or both). Perhaps sacrificed on the recent trend of “lean” in the healthcare system.
  - woofie11 7y ago
    We've seen incompetence within all of our power structures. It turned out the $10 million/year CEOs aren't quite competent. The same for most of the other rich/powerful.
mensetmanusman 7y ago
In this environment, PPE is zero sum. This PPE was going to this hospital, or another.
onyva 7y ago
Not sure if that’s the source but Rachel Maddow was reporting on this for a week now, if I’m not mistaken.

300 points by tectonic 7y ago

Why did the doctor even speak to FBI,DHS agents in first place ? Did they have a warrant ? Day by day it is getting harder to understand who are the good guys these days.

hitpointdrew 7y ago
It's been pretty clear for awhile now.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
detaro 7y ago
The Defense Production Act gives the federal government pretty far reaching powers to control and seize goods needed to fight covid-19. If they claim you're hoarding, they can seize it, AFAIK without a warrant.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  This is why I was surprised there was so much push by Dems to invoke the DPA under the current admin: misuse was probable.

1996 7y ago

Something to remember for whoever thinks the government needs more power in time of crisis.

CharlesW 7y ago
What new power(s) are enabling the current administration to do this that previous administrations didn't have?
- SteveNuts 7y ago
  I think OP was saying don't let another Patriot Act happen in the wake of all of this (my interpretation).
  - CharlesW 7y ago
    Ah, I thought OP had something specific in mind for this case. Thanks for connecting that for me instead of just downvoting.
SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
Or the need for a working supply chain. It's a dysfunction on a couple of levels here, not just in the power of the government - if it was able and willing to provide supply this wouldn't be an issue at all. Instead hospitals are scrounging on their own.
pjc50 7y ago
It's not really about "power" as a one-axis variable; I don't see even the most anti-government people in the US campaigning to reduce the government's nuclear weapons stockpile, and you don't get much more power than that. It's about power without accountability.

treis 7y ago

Boooo click bait.

thecolorblue 7y ago

It's not the seizing that bothers me. It's that I have not seen any (credible) stories of where the seized PPE goes.

hitpointdrew 7y ago
No audit trail whatsoever, disgusting.
throwaway894345 7y ago
Are any congresspeople pissed about this? Can't they demand an account of where the PPE is going?
- paulmd 7y ago
  They can demand but Trump won't answer subpoenas. Whatcha gonna do, the constitutional answer to a rogue president bucking congressional oversight is impeachment but the Senate already made it clear there's no possible act that could get them to convict.
  - woah 7y ago
    This sounds like a political opinion, but every part of it is a simple, commonly acknowledged fact
- kevingadd 7y ago
  Lawmakers don't have any actual power if the agencies resist them. One great example of this was during the initial travel bans, both lawmakers and judges were unable to get CBP/DHS to actually comply with orders because the government employees working for those agencies simply ignored them. When that happens the only real option a judge has is to send federal marshals out to enforce an order (as far as I know), and there's no guarantee the marshals will listen.
  - xnyan 7y ago
    >Lawmakers don't have any actual power This is not true at all. Congress controls the purse. CBP can ignore all they want, but they would probably be more pliable if they were not getting paid. Also "...all civil officers of the United States" can be removed directly by the Senate. In practice this is limited to heads of agencies at the lowest but that is just a practice, anyone executing federal power is applicable.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

hitpointdrew 7y ago

Mass. Governor Charlie Baker coordinated with BJ's Wholesale to get a shipment of 2M N95 masks...they were all "sized" (stolen) by the Feds. The governor then coordinated with Patriots owner Robert Kraft to use the patriots private jet to go get 1M masks. Thank goodness to the Kraft family and their support in this situation. There has been 0 transparency or audit trail with where these masks are going that the Feds are seizing. If I were Charlie Baker I would call up the National Guard and tell them to retrieve the masks that were sized by any means necessary. This is an absolute disgrace, and blatant theft by the Feds.

VectorLock 7y ago
This I think is still the wildest story out of this entire ordeal.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
cm2187 7y ago
The same happened all over europe. European countries seizing equipment in transit toward other european countries. Even France did it (despite Macron's insistance on European cooperation).
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  Just to point out a distinction, this more similar to the EU as an entity seizing shipments headed to Germany or France rather than another country within Europe taking them.
- Yoric 7y ago
  To clarify: the shipment for Sweden was eventually released by France. This was clearly a snafu, but it was eventually resolved.
  - cm2187 7y ago

mfer 7y ago

The title is misleading. The FBI and DHS are seizing shipments of PPE. > Before we could send the funds by wire transfer, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived, showed their badges, and started questioning me. No, this shipment was not headed for resale or the black market. The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. Turns out there is a black market for PPE right now. The FBI should be investigating odd sales, like the one described in the article. Some of them will be black market dealing taking PPE away from hospitals that need it. This is the part that bothers me... > But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure. So, after they showed it was for a hospital and the FBI (who investigates federal crimes like black market deals) was satisfied. The the DoH wants to step in and redirect until a congressional rep steps in. That's the odd part to me.

FireBeyond 7y ago
> The the DoH wants to step in and redirect until a congressional rep steps in. That's the odd part to me. Not the DoH, DHS, Homeland Security. Whose oversight of the COVID-19 management is being coordinated with Jared Kushner. It has been heavily implied, sometimes outright stated, that some of these "redirections" are going to states who are "being nice" to the President. I would be entirely unsurprised to learn that others are going to "battleground" states (in the election sense, not the disease sense). Or to "government authorized private contractors" for resale (with its own due sense of irony).
- WorkingDead 7y ago
  The more likely scenario is that the government is inefficient and you have multiple agencies chasing the same issue and not talking to each other.
  - jasonlotito 7y ago

grayed-down 7y ago

Strange story. Good outcome. A lot of missing information.

csense 7y ago

LA Times originally reported government seizures of PPE weeks ago. In separate news from a different source (PBS Newshour), some hospitals are reporting protective gear from state and federal stockpiles that is completely unusable: masks 10 years past its expiration date, masks for children, masks that are rotting [1]. My guess: These two stories are related. The government had enough masks / PPE on paper, but never actually checked it was usable. No one intended this to happen, it just sort of fell through the cracks, and all the paperwork said everything was OK. Now that huge amounts of physical masks are actually needed, they can't get by anymore on paperwork that doesn't reflect reality. The stockpile probably has a (not officially acknowledged) main purpose of protecting the essential parts of government if there's an outbreak: soldiers, intelligence, Congress, etc. Since people actually started physically checking the masks in government stockpiles, behind the scenes bureaucrats have been panicking because they suddenly found out there won't be enough PPE to protect the government, and the market's so tight and the supply chain is so stretched that they just can't simply buy it, there's way too much demand. So they've decided they need to rebuild the stockpile. The government's reasoning is probably that what really matters is that the "people who matter" in government have what they need. If civilian doctors get sick, and some of them die, that's (seen by government bureaucrats as) an acceptable price to pay to be sure the government itself is protected. This sounds pretty horrible, but I'm not sure they're completely wrong. For example, what if Russia invades Europe or China lands troops in California next week, the US Army starts to deploy in response, but gets paralyzed by a huge coronavirus outbreak and all available PPE's already been used? Seems to me like this kind of ethical question should go through the public political process. I'm not sure why they aren't simply honest about why they're doing it. Trying to hide it suggests some bad motive. Maybe it's to hide the original screwup of not checking the stockpile properly. Maybe they have OPSEC concerns about not tipping our adversaries off that this would be a great week to start a war, since the US Military's effectiveness is temporarily crippled by lack of masks. Anyone know how to file an FOIA request to try to force the government to tell us what's happening to seized masks? [1] https://youtu.be/A4YZxctxh8w?t=159 https://youtu.be/A4YZxctxh8w?t=159

paulmd 7y ago
> My guess: The government had enough masks / PPE on paper, but never actually checked it was usable. No one intended this to happen, it just sort of fell through the cracks, and all the paperwork said everything was OK. No, Republicans in congress very specifically cut the budgets that were supposed to be used to rotate out expired materials. It wasn't accidental, it's a case of refusing to pay the insurance bill and then acting shocked when you're in a car crash. It also took a big hit from the sequestration, like everything else in the government, but the budget was already underfunded to begin with because DHHS was associated with Obamacare and Republicans wouldn't approve any spending there. They did the best they could with the money they had and focused on drugs instead of things like masks, which have a harder "cut off" for efficacy and were seen as easier to acquire in the heat of a crisis. But masks eventually have an expiration date too, and if you never rotate them they will eventually go bad too. https://www.propublica.org/article/us-emergency-medical-stockpile-funding-unprepared-coronavirus https://www.propublica.org/article/us-emergency-medical-stoc... > After using up the swine flu emergency funds, the Obama administration tried to replenish the stockpile in 2011 by asking Congress to provide $655 million, up from the previous year’s budget of less than $600 million. Responding to swine flu, which the CDC estimated killed more than 12,000 people in the United States over the course of a year, had required the largest deployment in the stockpile’s history, including nearly 20 million pieces of personal protective equipment and more than 85 million N95 masks, according to a 2016 report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. > “We recognized the need for replenishment of the stockpile and budgeted about a 10% increase,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who served as the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration. “That was rejected by the Republican House.” > Republicans took over the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterms on the Tea Party wave of opposition to the landmark 2010 health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The new House majority was intent on curbing government spending, especially at HHS, which administered Obamacare. ... > “It just was never funded at the level that was needed to purchase new products, to replace expiring products and to invest in what we now know are the really necessary ancillary products,” said Dara Lieberman, director of government relations at the Trust for America’s Health, a nonpartisan public health advocacy and research group.

Yoric 7y ago

The title is somewhat clickbait-ish. The FBI and DHS have raided a shipment, which they thought was not meant for a hospital. Once they understood it was meant for a hospital, they let it flow.

kevingadd 7y ago
The DHS still attempted to seize it even though it was for a hospital, until a lawmaker intervened. You're correct that the FBI let it through.
- notyourday 7y ago
  Prioritization. Just because it is a hospital that wants to get them does not mean that it was that specific hospital had a higher priority on PPE at that specific time. Today an unfilled request for PPE from Mount Sinai has a higher priority than an unfilled request for PPE in Boston. Mount Sinai therefore would win against Boston. Boston would win against a small hospital in Erie, PA.
  - larkost 7y ago
    You imply that there is some list of prioritization out there. President Trump has repeatedly maintained that the Federal Government is not in charge of organizing who has what, and that the States should be managing this. Given this lack of control (or even central organizing), who exactly would be determining who has the priority that you are asserting?
    - notyourday 7y ago
      The Admiral Polowczyk whom they brought to run the logistics on coronavirus task force said there's absolutely a prioritization list based on "hotness" of the zone. He said it himself to camera during the briefing number 21(Edit: not 21, it had to be earlier - it was within a few days of the NYC lock down. Maybe that Monday ). They spent the first week implementing/adapting some DoD system that allowed them to track the pipeline of orders and goods matching the orders to the individual hospital level and if necessary redirect from one to another.

tuna-piano 7y ago

1. Weeks ago (and still?), tons of people were complaining that the federal government should take over procurement and distribution of medical supplies. 2. Now, the federal government is taking over some procurement and distribution of medical supplies. More complaints on this method. There are certainly legitimate complaints to be had with state procurement, federal procurement, communication gaps, problems with distribution priority, etc... but I'm left confused as to the shock that the federal government is seizing supplies? Isn't that what people wanted when they asked for federal government managed procurement+distribution?

kec 7y ago
If this is a serious question: People wanted the Federal government to act as a single purchaser to source and transparently distribute material to the states, leveraging efficiencies of scale and a view of the whole situation. No one was asking for the federal government to seize already purchased material and do things with it with zero transparency or accountability.
- Natsu 7y ago
  Well, they didn't actually seize anything here, they figured out that some shipment from China was going to hospitals instead of being intended for resale, then let those hospitals have it once things were straightened out. The only question is how this transaction got wrongly flagged to begin with.
  - coleca 7y ago
    From the article it sounds like it was a pretty clandestine operation to begin with. He admits to paying 5x the normal prices for the masks, was picking them up in trucks marked as food service, taking different routes, etc. This is exactly the kind of shady transaction the government should be investigating. It could have just as easily been some price speculator buying those masks for all the Feds knew. Once they were assured it wasn't they let it go. The speculation about DHS was a little vague. The doctor explains at the end of this short interview that he was actually appreciative of the FBI for intervening and why they did: https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/04/20/dr-andrew-artenstein-fbi-questions-masks-purchase-intv-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/coronavirus/ https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/04/20/dr-andrew-arten...

howmayiannoyyou 7y ago

Consider the possibility that Chinese made PPE is being withheld from Red States to undermine and discredit Republican/Trump support; and is being facilitated for use in Blue States (eg. Illinois) to shore up support for Democratic politicians.

op00to 7y ago
Ok. I did. Now what should I consider, that if my aunt had wheels she'd be a tea cart?
- freshbob 7y ago
  She'd clearly be a bicycle, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-RfHC91Ewc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-RfHC91Ewc
  - op00to 6y ago
    That guy is brutal!
- battery_cowboy 7y ago
  I'm going to use this in the future, thanks, it's a great sentence.

m0zg 7y ago

HN: the situation where procurement is local is dumb, feds should be distributing PPE Feds: (attempt to) seize PPE to distribute it elsewhere HN: The situation where feds seize PPE is dumb, you should be able to procure locally Which is it folks? What's the set up that will satisfy your wishes? Meanwhile a quote from gov Cuomo today: "I think the president is right when he says the states should lead", regarding testing.

jasonlotito 7y ago
This is what you are saying: HN: You should have been wearing a seat belt when the car crashed. Feds: Puts on the seat belt after the car crashed. HN: That is dumb. Which is it folks? What seat belt state will satisfy your wishes? The fed has dropped the ball already. It needs to show more leadership going forward. The time for the fed handling PPE procurement and distribution has already passed though, at least in the way they are doing it. The only thing they are doing is taking PPE that is needed now and keeping it away from those that expect to get it.
- m0zg 7y ago
  The fed so far has made it so we have enough PPE, beds, and ventilators, and brought down the projected death count down more than an order of magnitude. Our test throughput in hotspots far exceeds that of any other country. If that's "failed" I'd like you to elucidate what "success" would look like to you.
  - jasonlotito 7y ago
    > The fed so far has made it so we have enough PPE We don't have enough PPE. This has been well reported. That's it. Full stop. > If that's "failed" I'd like you to elucidate what "success" would look like to you. Not having to lie about being successful would be a start. Also, having in place the things that were dismantled by this administration that they are looking to put back into place in the middle of a crisis. It's building a fire truck after a fire started because you didn't need it before hand. It's idiotic.
- 7y ago

goda90 7y ago

Someone close to me has contacts and friends in Hong Kong. One offered to send him a box of masks for free(I think just surgical masks, not N95). The plan was to give a few to friends/family, and his wife's coworkers, who are in-home caretakers for the elderly. The rest would be donated to a hospital or similar. But the box never arrived. It hit customs and was seized.

magwa101 7y ago

Of course, the shakedown requires restriction of supplies right?

blhack 7y ago

It sounds like federal agencies are stepping in to investigate and prevent price gouging. Good. That is their job. If this wasn't happening, there would be even less PPE available for hospitals. Of course when you are talking about something at the scale of what is happening in the country right now, there are going to be imperfections in the system, and those imperfections will get reported on. That should not be taken as indicative of the state of things overall, but merely as exception reporting. The news aspect of event has been incredibly depressing. There are commonly outright lies being presented as if they are valid representations of things that are happening in the world. Sometimes that is simply a part of life, and the consequences are relatively (to this) minimal, but in this situation, this type of reporting is getting people killed.

xnyan 7y ago
>It sounds like federal agencies are stepping in to investigate and prevent price gouging This is not correct. There is overwhelming evidence that the federal government is seizing private supplies of masks for redistribution. I find accounts like this quite chilling, note that the federal agents don't dispute that these are the property of a hospital, it takes (political)force to keep their stuff: "After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure."[1] 1) https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025
pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y ago
There is no federal law on price gouging. Despite the increase of government enforcement activity, not every price increase constitutes price gouging (no matter how abnormal the price seems). State laws are toothless and many resign their regulation in the face of an event that lasts for 30+ days, as it accurately suggests the problem isn't going away if it hasn't by then and is probably bigger than the state. The market has expanded and there is a war for resources. The price is the market price and is a necessary market signal. Any 2-bit lawyer can defend this now, enjoy. Two the state's attorney general, don't waste public resources on this. The governments fully capable of creating a price ceiling and subsidizing on top of that. The market signals are abundantly clear and are a necessary motivating factor to solve the supply constraints.

mistersquid 7y ago

This headline is somewhat misleading as the shipment in the OP was not seized. > The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure. I remained nervous and worried on the long drive back, feelings that did not abate until midnight, when I received the call that the PPE shipment was secured at our warehouse.

fc_barnes 7y ago

The Republican Party is a criminal conspiracy.

pdonis 7y ago

The title of this thread should be changed. The actual article title is: "In Pursuit of PPE". The actual article does not talk about any PPE being seized by FBI or DHS. It talks about FBI agents questioning the author when he was inspecting samples of a shipment of PPE before authorizing purchase, and about his learning that DHS was considering redirecting the PPE. But it does not say any PPE was actually seized.

dang 7y ago
Thanks, we've reverted it. Submitted title was "The FBI and DHS are seizing shipments of PPE intended for hospitals". Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22926309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22926309 about not doing that.
- tectonic 7y ago
  Noted, thank you.
  - dang 7y ago
    Appreciated! Don't forget that the very same information can be super helpful if you add it as a first comment to the thread. Then you also have more space to explain things such as why it matters, or where in the article it's found, or what else might be important in the article, or related links.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

damon_c 7y ago

The real question is, will the US voters living in the states which are recipients of the seized PPE be _more_ or _less_ likely to vote for the perpetrators of such malfeasance.

f0ok 7y ago

Nurse here. As the epidemic started to get international, I went online and bought a couple boxes of N95 masks, gloves, glasses, and Tyveks. I went to the store and got a few litres of grain alcohol. I told my friends and family this would become a pandemic. They did not believe me. These items were still easy to find two months ago. What I cannot comprehend is why was I preparing for this when most institutions were not taking this opportunity to do the same.

rubidium 7y ago
I question the same. Either hospital supply chains were incompetent or underfunded (or both). Perhaps sacrificed on the recent trend of “lean” in the healthcare system.
- woofie11 7y ago
  We've seen incompetence within all of our power structures. It turned out the $10 million/year CEOs aren't quite competent. The same for most of the other rich/powerful.

mensetmanusman 7y ago

In this environment, PPE is zero sum. This PPE was going to this hospital, or another.

onyva 7y ago

Not sure if that’s the source but Rachel Maddow was reporting on this for a week now, if I’m not mistaken.