Project Bioshield sounds a bit like a term from an episode of Star Trek. And the acronym for the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) conjures up images of a friendly old man with a beard, a papa figure. But funny names aside, both national emergency acts face serious scrutiny.
“PAHPA’s reauthorization is the opportunity to make the targeted and strategic changes to the medical and public health preparedness and response authorities and programs necessary to strengthen and improve our capabilities to successfully respond to all threats,” Sen. Richard Burr, D-N.C., said in a recent senate hearing.
Why that means anything to everyday Americans: “Medical and public health preparedness and response is a matter of national security,” Burr added.
In 2004, following a proposal of President George W. Bush, Congress passed the Project Bioshield Act, which allocated $5.6 billion of federal money for counterterrorism research. The act promised to provide 10 years of funding for medical countermeasures of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attacks. Architects of the act insisted it would generate faster, more dedicated research, and innovative medical countermeasures. Researchers were to produce health defense drugs. What was promised hasn’t really happened yet, said one homeland security expert.
“They haven’t generated as much new stuff as they were supposed to,” said Paul Rosenzweig, deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security.
Rosenzweig said Bioshield faces funding shortfalls, and is in “a valley of death where there is not enough money being invested in it.” Also, little private funding goes toward medical countermeasure research.
Congress cut nearly $1.5 billion from Project Bioshield through the 2011 budget. In 2006, it created the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which does medical countermeasure research. President Obama’s 2012 budget proposes a transfer of $765 million from Bioshield to BARDA and a new investment corporation for medical countermeasures. More details are in an April 2011 Congressional Research Services report on Bioshield.
There’s a bipartisan push to reauthorize both Project Bioshield and PAHPA; it’s co-led by Burr and Robert P. Casey Jr., D-Pa. Burr was the author of PAHPA back in 2006, which amended the Public Service Act and was signed into law by then-President Bush.
On May 17 the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing to discuss PAHPA and Bioshield.
Among the experts questioned on the panel: Dr. Nicole Lurie, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the Department of Health and Human Services. Lurie’s position, created in 2006 as part of PAHPA, includes the collaboration of departments within Health and Human Services and also work with Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to ensure cross-departmental preparation.
Sen. Casey, chairman of the Senate Health committee, asked Lurie to talk about her greatest fear for the nation’s emergency preparation: What keeps her up at night?
“Things I worry most about; No. 1 a threat we never thought about and anticipated before coming our way; our ability to recognize it when we see it; our ability to act quickly on it,” Lurie responded.
It takes funding from state and local partners as well as private partners to move forward on new and promising medical countermeasures, ones that “place emphasis on capabilities,” according to Lurie. With the nation in a fiscal squeeze, generating enough funds to stymie quality research is tough.
“I actually worry that we could backslide on some of our progress and that would be a dangerous situation for us to be in,” Lurie said.
Sen. Burr also expressed concern over anticipated budget cuts.
“Just today news broke that the department plans to make cuts to preparedness programs,” Burr said.
“This raises significant questions as to how the administration is preparing and coordinating their preparedness and response mission,” he added.
