WASHINGTON -- Despite progress addressing concerns over nuclear proliferation, the United States has not adequately tackled the more urgent threat of biological terrorism, a panel of experts asserted yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 7).
(Oct. 22) -
Former Senators Bob Graham (D-Fla.), left, and Jim Talent (R-Mo.), co-chairmen of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, present findings by their panel to U.S. lawmakers last year. The United States has not taken enough action to address the threat of biological terrorism, the group indicated yesterday (Win McNamee/Getty Images).
The "nation's level of preparedness for dealing with the threat of bioterrorism remains far lower than that of the nuclear threat," according to an interim report released yesterday by the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.
The commission, stood up by Congress in 2007, issued a study last December which concluded an attack involving a weapon of mass destruction is likely to occur somewhere in the world by 2013 unless significant steps were taken. The analysis also found that a biological strike was the most likely event due to the widespread availability of deadly pathogens and materials.
The 27-page interim report, titled "The Clock is Ticking," is a "shot across the bow" for policy-makers and legislators before the task force issues a final report in January, according to former Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who co-chaired the panel.
The commission's final appraisal will be a "report card" grading the administration and Congress on their progress in implementing the task force's recommendations, he said.
The panel's initial findings contained 13 calls to action, including conducting a major review of the program to secure dangerous pathogens and tighten oversight of high-containment biodefense laboratories; curtailing suspected or known nuclear-weapon activities in Iran and North Korea; and implementing a comprehensive policy on the threat of nuclear proliferation from Pakistan (see GSN, Oct. 13).
"We hope [the interim report] will be a wake-up call to action so that our final report will be as both accurate and as positive for the American people in terms of what their government is doing for their security," Graham said yesterday during a panel discussion at George Washington University. The session was hosted by the school's Homeland Security Policy Institute.
In the interim report, the task force was particularly critical of the White House's budget request for Project Bioshield, a program intended to promote development of countermeasures against weapons of mass destruction, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which manages Bioshield and similar programs.
"This should be the threshold stuff. This should be the antiterror 101 stuff," commission co-Chairman and former Senator Jim Talent (R-Mo.) told the audience. He added that Congress was partly at fault for not appropriately funding the programs.
The outgoing Bush administration requested $969 million in additional funding for the authority, according to the interim report. Those funds "could and should have been included in the stimulus package but was not."
The Obama administration's request for the authority in fiscal 2010 was only $305 million. "That is insufficient by a factor of 10," the interim report states.
The document does not provide a dollar figure for Project Bioshield.
The University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity estimated that it would take roughly $3.4 billion a year in medical countermeasure development to reach 90 percent chance of success defending the country against bioterrorism threats.
The panel also said the administration has not done enough to strengthen "disease surveillance" in the event that a biological outbreak occurred.
"If the president asked today how many people have been infected with H1N1, the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] couldn't tell him," Talent said, referring to the recent flu epidemic.
White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the administration is committed to ensuring that U.S. residents have access to the medical products needed to protect them from current and emerging biological threats.
"We have available more than $6 billion to make available vaccines, antivirals and other supplies and resources that are essential to protect the American people from H1N1 influenza," Shapiro said yesterday in an e-mail message. In fiscal 2010 the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is expected to have "over $2 billion available for the development and acquisition of medical countermeasures for biodefense," he said.
While the White House installed Gary Samore as the National Security Council's arms control and nonproliferation coordinator -- whose responsibilities include strategy on weapons of mass destruction -- it has not appointed a senior official with an "extensive" public health and biosecurity background to take the lead on biodefense issues, the report states.
"If that person is not there you don't get the balance in the approach between nuclear and bio," Talent said.
Samore "most definitely has the president's ear on nuclear and biological nonproliferation," Shapiro countered, adding the National Security Council has two teams of experts with scientific, public health and medical expertise to address biodefense issues.
Graham noted that both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations had a dedicated biodefense official on the council.
The commission, in its report last year, stated that such an adviser could be placed within the vice president's office or made the head of a separate White House organization. That idea "is either still in the trash can or maybe under consideration," according to Graham.
Talent said that "if you connect up the dots ... the message we're getting is the belief ... that intellectually, yes, bio is a threat, but nuclear is the real threat."
The commission this week praised President Barack Obama for seeing through several biological laboratory security reports that were started by the Bush administration.
The task force also applauded the National Security Council's effort to develop a "Bioweapons Prevention Strategy" (see GSN, Aug. 28).
Both former lawmakers offered effusive praise for legislation introduced last month by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) that would centralize the regulatory structure for federal and private laboratories working with the world's deadliest diseases.
The proposed bill would also divide the select agent and toxin list into a tiered system, dictating that facilities handling the eight to 10 most harmful agents install the highest security (see GSN, Sept. 9).
"I appreciate Senators Graham's and Talent's hard work on this very important issue and their strong support for the bill I introduced with Senator Collins to implement their commission's recommendations," Lieberman said today in a statement. The Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee chairman said he intends to move the bill through that panel next week.
Graham said he hopes that a companion measure would be introduced in the House around January so that the United States can attend the Biological Weapons Convention review conference in 2011 with the "moral high ground" on biosecurity.
Talent said the commission was pleased by the "aggressive" stance Obama has taken toward nuclear nonproliferation, noting the president's wide-ranging Prague speech last spring. The former lawmaker specifically lauded some of the less high-profile goals laid out in the speech, including increasing the funding of the International Atomic Energy Agency and announcing a nuclear summit to be held in Washington in March.
However, the former lawmaker predicted that the panel's final grade on the nuclear issues will be "hard" because "from the nature of the thing, we cannot expect [the nonproliferation benchmarks] to be done in the one-year time frame in which we are operating."