FEMA Received More Than 3 Million Fillakit Test Tubes, Then Told States Not to Use Them

On May 7, 2020, the Federal Emergency Management Agency signed its first deal with Fillakit LLC, a company near Houston that had been formed six days earlier, according to ProPublica.¹ The order was for COVID-19 testing supplies: plastic tubes filled with saline, to carry patient swabs to laboratories. ProPublica put the contract at $10.2 million. A House subcommittee later put it at $10 million, under FEMA delivery order 70FB7020F00000113.² ProPublica reported that Fillakit supplied more than 3 million tubes, which FEMA approved and sent to all 50 states.¹

Soda-bottle preforms, filled in the open air

ProPublica reported on June 18, 2020, that Fillakit was filling the order with plastic preforms, the small blanks that are expanded with heat and pressure into 2-liter soda bottles. The preforms were shoveled into the warehouse, then filled with saline in what workers described as unsanitary conditions. A ProPublica reporter who visited the facility in June confirmed that workers were using snow shovels to gather the tubes and were filling them in the open air.¹

ProPublica identified the owner as Paul Wexler and described him as an ex-telemarketer who had been accused of fraudulent practices repeatedly over two decades. Wexler told The Wall Street Journal that the allegations of unsanitary conditions were baseless and came from a disgruntled former employee, according to ProPublica's account. He declined to comment to ProPublica.¹

The states that could not use them

Health officials in New York, New Jersey, Texas and New Mexico told ProPublica they had not been able to use the Fillakit tubes. Three other states said they had received the supplies and had not sent them to testing sites. Some states said that even uncontaminated, the tubes were too big for their laboratory machines. Missouri asked its testing facilities not to use the Fillakit supplies the state had sent out. Before that, FEMA had asked health officials in several states to find another use for them.¹

By June 26, FEMA had issued its own warning. "Out of an abundance of caution, we recommend this media not be used at this time," FEMA spokeswoman Alex Bruner told ProPublica. The agency said it was working with the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to analyze the tubes.¹

The same report said the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general was looking into the contractor, as The Wall Street Journal had first reported. A former Fillakit employee, Teresa Green, told ProPublica that a Homeland Security "special agent" had contacted her. The inspector general's office said it does not confirm or deny open investigations.¹

The House subcommittee's account

On March 30, 2021, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis wrote to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the acting FEMA administrator about pandemic supply contracts. Under the heading "Questionable Contracts Awarded by FEMA," it described three: Fillakit, Panthera Worldwide and Federal Government Experts. The letter says Fillakit was formed in May 2020, received the FEMA contract seven days later and "ultimately provided the government with three million plastic tubes that were both contaminated and the wrong size for standard laboratories." The subcommittee wrote that the tubes could have further limited coronavirus testing when testing was already scarce. It asked FEMA for all documents on the award and on Fillakit's performance under the contract.²

Neither ProPublica's report nor the House letter states how much FEMA paid Fillakit in the end, whether any money was recovered, or what the inspector general found.

Documents cited

Notes

1. Ryan Gabrielson, "FEMA Ordered $10.2 Million in COVID-19 Testing Kits It's Now Warning States Not to Use," ProPublica (June 26, 2020); original at propublica.org. ↩₁ ↩₂ ↩₃ ↩₄ ↩₅ ↩₆ ↩₇
2. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Acting FEMA Administrator on PPE contracts (March 30, 2021). ↩₁ ↩₂