NASA never said anything like that. What did happen was that when the Apollo program was shut down, the building that the Apollo’s were built in was retooled for newer technology. In the process, some parts were thrown away because they were outdated and better stuff was available.
The reason we stopped going to the moon, at the time, was the Vietnam War. Congress needed to cut NASA’s budget to finance the war. After the near disaster of Apollo 13 and waning public interest, the money wasn’t there for continuing along that line.
Times have changed. The moon is a target once again. In the meantime, we have placed quite a few satellites in orbit around the moon. Due to problems with gravity variances on the moon, most of them have fallen from orbit and crashed on the moon’s surface or have become dead because of loss of power. However, there are at least three satellites right now that are active and in orbit around the moon. They are the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), as well as the two ARTEMIS probes, which are functioning.
So not only did NASA not lose the technology, but we’ve been sending stuff to the moon for awhile. It’s just that we haven’t sent people in awhile.