Since the anthrax attacks of 2001 the federal government has made strides in building up a more robust “community” of bio-defense experts, but that progress will be hurt by potential cuts in the federal budget, the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s technology efforts said yesterday.

There is now the beginning of an “actual community of bio-defense experts” in the government, but “some of the budget cuts being contemplated will do great damage to that community and if people don’t see career paths in bio-security then this complex mélange of technical subjects may suffer and so will the federal government’s expertise in this area in time to come,” Tara O’Toole, under secretary of Science and Technology, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

How the nation grapples with a more austere fiscal environment goes beyond federal capabilities in bio-defense.

O’Toole also said that despite being more capable than they were in 2001, local laboratories across the nation that conduct a lot of testing of biological samples that are collected by first responders have already begun to suffer from state budget cuts.

“I will point out, however, that the robustness of this important leg of our response is also imperiled,” O’Toole said. “Since 2008, we’ve lost about 50,000 public health staff in the state and local public health agencies due to economic pressures.”

Nicole Lurie, assistant secretary for Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services, also said that progress has been made in federal help to state and locals to prepare and respond to emergencies as well as progress at the state and local level.

“However, without continued support and funding for our public health and medical systems, the infrastructure will degrade,” Lurie said.

Yesterday’s hearing follows the release last week by the Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center of a report card grading the nation’s ability to respond to biological events, be they intentional attacks or a disease outbreak (Defense Daily, Oct. 14). Overall, the assessment is that progress is being made, but that the United States’ bio-response capabilities for large-scale events are inadequate.

O’Toole said the report card’s characterization of the nation’s bio-forensic capabilities, for which it gave a failing grade in five of six categories of biological outbreaks and a “D” in the other, “was a little bit harsh.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the ranking member on the committee, said there needs to be to be a single leader within the executive branch to lead the nation’s bio-defense efforts given the disparate federal agencies and departments that have a role in countering and responding to bio-terrorism.

“It concerns me that so many different federal entities could be scrambling to respond during and after an attack,” Collins said. “And that is, of course, in addition to state and local health officials and first responders that are a critical part of the system as well.”

Collins was not able to stick around for the question and answer portion of the hearing, but O’Toole later said that while she understands the desire for a strong leader in a crisis, the idea is “to some extent a red herring.” That’s because the president will be in charge in the event of a “catastrophic attack” and that likely the homeland security chief within the National Security Staff, currently John Brennan, would take the primary coordinating role.

“The interagency approach brings strengths as well as liabilities,” O’Toole said, and that multiple disasters and events since 2001, both in the United States and overseas, have shown the need for “very detailed, specialized knowledge to have an informed coherent response to these kinds of events.”