The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considering upgrades to its current biological threat detection system but the ability to make informed decisions to enhance the Generation-2 BioWatch system is hindered by a lack of information on its ability to detect an attack, according to a new federal audit agency report.
“DHS lacks reliable information about BioWatch Gen-2’s technical capabilities to detect a biological attack and therefore lacks the basis for informed cost-benefit decisions about possible upgrades or enhancements to the system,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released on Monday.
GAO said that DHS hasn’t developed technical performance requirements based on operational objectives to assess the Gen-2’s capability to detect a biological attack and instead relies on modeling and simulation studies.
“However,” GAO said, “these studies have not directly and comprehensively assessed the capabilities of the Gen-2 system,” adding that “in our review of the tests that have been conducted, we found there are limitations and uncertainties in the test results on the technical performance characteristics of the Gen-2 system.”
The Gen-2 system consists of 600 aerosol collectors in more than 30 major urban areas nationwide. Deployments include outdoor and indoor locations and capacity for major events. The collectors draw in air through filters that are manually retrieved and analyzed at state and local laboratories with actionable results taking between 12 and 36 hours to declare, including the time taken to collect the sample.
The National Academies of Science said in a 2011 report that the Gen-1 and Gen-2 systems were rapidly deployed without sufficient testing, validation and evaluation of their technical capabilities. In 2014 DHS terminated a program to develop and acquire a Gen-3 version of BioWatch that would have provided autonomous detection and reporting capabilities to dramatically reduce the time between collection of a sample and a threat warning but the effort was canceled because the department said the costs of the new system outweighed the benefits.
Some of the equipment in Gen-2 will reach the end of its life-cycle within the next year, which means DHS needs to make decisions about investing in the program, said the report, Biosurveillance: DHS Should Not Pursue BioWatch Upgrades or Enhancements Until System Capabilities are Established (GAO-16-99). The report also said that DHS officials said they are considering improving or upgrading the Gen-2 system.
GAO warns that “because of the limitations we have identified, decision makers are not assured of having sufficient information to ensure future investments are actually addressing a capability gap not met by the current system.” The audit agency recommends that DHS not pursue upgrades to Gen-2 until technical performance requirements are established and the system is assessed against these requirements, and that it produce “a full accounting of statistical and other uncertainties and limitations in what is known about the system’s capability to meet its operational objectives.”
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement on Monday that GAO’s findings “bring into focus shortcomings in the BioWatch program at a time when concerns about the threat of a bioterrorism event are elevated.” McCaul’s counterpart in the Senate, Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, state that “I will work with the department, and my colleagues to assess what significant changes are needed in BioWatch going forward to ensure that we are most efficiently utilizing our limited biodefense resources.”