The ability to produce and deliver deadly pathogens for use in an a large attack against civilian populations by international terrorist groups and other non-state actors exists now, says a report card released this month by the Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center.
The report card focuses on a strategic assessment of the U.S.’s ability to respond to a biological event, from detecting an attack or disease outbreak to distributing medical countermeasures and conducting environmental cleanup. But the Bio-Response Report Card begins with an assessment of biological threats in the 21st Century and says that “technically competent groups” could obtain deadly pathogens that are available naturally and create bio-weapons that could be delivered with existing technology that is available globally in the medical and pharmaceutical industries.
“In summary, modern biotechnology provides small groups the capabilities for a game-changing bio-attack previously reserved to nation-states,” says the report card. “Even more troubling, rapid advances in biotechnology, such as synthetic biology, will allow small teams of individuals to produce increasingly powerful bio-weapons in the future.”
The co-chairs of the WMD Center are former U.S. senators Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Jim Talent (R-Mo.), who also co-chaired the congressionally-mandated Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, which reported in late 2008 that the likeliest WMD threat facing the nation is biological.
The report card says that while traditional deterrence methods may not be effective against non-state actors in carrying out a biological attack, “a strong bio-response capability may provide a deterrent effect.”
The report card lists six categories of biological outbreaks and attacks facing the country in terms of scale, from small scale non-contagious and contagious to large-scale drug resistant and global crisis contagious. In the middle, which is where the report suggests that future preparedness programs be focused, are large-scale non-contagious and large-scale contagious outbreaks and attacks.
The report card lists eight bio-response capabilities that it grades against each of the outbreak and attack categories, and says whether the capabilities are improving, remaining level or declining.
In the two attack categories the report is most concerned with, large-scale non-contagious and contagious, most of the nation’s response capabilities get a “D,” including detection and diagnosis, medical countermeasure availability, medical countermeasure development and approvals, and medical countermeasure distribution, the report card shows. The medical management capability also gets a “D.” Attack attribution and environmental cleanup get failing grades and only communication gets a “C.”
The report card suggests that the best return on investment for the country would be to focus on improving the Ds to Cs.
The finding that the U.S. is not prepared to respond to a global outbreak of a deadly pathogen or large-scale outbreak against a drug resistant virus isn’t a surprise, the WMD Center says. And it’s not worth putting these threats at the top of the priority list, it says.
“If Congress and the Administration focused primarily on addressing these most extreme, less common scenarios, it could easily expend the most available bio-defense resources without a measurable return on investment,” the report says.
Tara O’Toole, the head of Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security, says the report card’s characterization of the nation’s bio-forensic capabilities “was a little bit harsh.”
Shortly after the report was released, O’Toole testified before a Senate panel, saying that the federal government has made progress since the 2001 anthrax attacks by building a more robust “community” of bio-defense experts. However, that progress will be curtailed by potential cuts in the federal budget, she says.
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,” O’Toole, tells 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 says 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 says. “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 tells the panel 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 says.