washtimes.com
BioWar: FY06 biodefense budget $4.2B
By Dee Ann Divis
Senior Science & Technology Editor
WASHINGTON, DC, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- If the White house gets its way, the Department of Health and Human Services will devote $4.2 billion during fiscal year 2006 to preparing for and countering a bioterror attack.
Despite the large total, the increase over last year is modest. If Congress approves the Bush administration's request, only $154 million more than last year will go towards biodefense at HHS. The money will buy medicine for the national stockpile, help hospitals deal with mass casualties and support research into man-made and naturally occurring bacteria and viruses.
Within the increase, however, are some noteworthy cuts. Spending to build more extramural laboratories was curtailed by the White House from $149 million in 2005 to $30 million for 2006.
These labs, which are not government-owned, but constructed with the expectation they will support government research, have been at the center of a gold rush by institutions looking to add capability on somebody else's dime. The labs also have been criticized for being duplicative and unsafe. Neighbors of the labs have been anxious despite assurances of safe operations. The escape of a lab monkey from a facility in Davis, Calif., and the illness of three Boston lab workers from the bioterror agent tularemia, did little to reassure those living near proposed sites.
Also being cut are grants to state and local authorities to improve local preparedness. Under the president's budget proposal, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would receive $797 million for its grant program, $130 million less than in FY 2005.
The CDC's bio-surveillance efforts, programs to monitor health data for signs of collective illness, will not get cut. The budget proposal for FY 2006 is $79 million, same as this year.
The agency also will get nearly a 50 percent increase in funding for its Strategic National Stockpile. A total of $600 million -- $203 million more than in FY 2005 -- will go to buy medicines and purchase the necessary equipment to store them properly. There is also a transfer of $12 million from grant programs to the SNS specifically earmarked to buy antibiotics against anthrax. It is not clear, however, whether or not that money already is counted as part of the $600 million total.
Anthrax is not contagious and is treatable with antibiotics. Getting the right medicines to a very large number of people, however, represents a significant challenge. The CDC is continuing to fund the Cities Readiness Initiative to help local governments handle large, sudden dispersals. It also will provide additional funding to support coordination between cities, the CDC and the U.S. Postal Service.
To help officials cope with shortages of hospital beds and staff during a bioterror attack, the CDC plans to buy portable hospital units. It also will expand the Medical Reserve Corps, which organizes local volunteers to aid during an emergency. Both programs are part of the new Mass Casualty Initiative.
Also under the MCI is a program to improve officials' access up-to-date credentialing information on healthcare providers in an emergency. The White House plans to spend an additional $12.5 million and $7.5 million on the reserve corps and credentialing program, respectively, in FY 2006. These two programs fall under the Office of Public Health and Emergency.
Though the CDC is getting significant biodefense funding, the National Institutes of Health has, by far, the largest pot of biodefense money within Health and Human Services.
With congressional approval, the NIH would get $1.76 billion for research, a "plus up" of $175 million over 2005. Not all of this, however, is for biodefense. Nearly $100 million is directed toward developing countermeasures against chemical, nuclear and radiological threats. The rest goes to studying both naturally occurring threats and those that might be created in the lab through bioengineering. NIH researchers will strive to find better ways to diagnose, prevent and, if necessary, treat diseases caused by new pathogens.
On a related note, the NIH also will be devoting $120 million to work on influenza. Worldwide epidemics of the flu over the last 100 years have killed tens of millions of people and scientists are worried another pandemic is brewing. They have been carefully studying old strains of this ever-mutating pathogen and monitoring new strains as they arise. Influenza is one of the few pathogens that can leap from species to species and public health officials are especially worried about cases of influenza in wild birds and farm fowl.
Though the Food and Drug Administration is not directly responsible for tracking influenza in farm animals it may have an indirect role in the effort through its food safety programs.
FDA is being specifically allocated $244 million for biodefense, with the majority going to protect the food supply. An increase of $30 million is requested over the FY 2005 budget of $150 million for food defense. This includes $20 million for surge testing capacity during an emergency and $6 million for research. A total of $3 million is being requested to monitor the food supply and another $1 million to continue developing an Emergency Response and Operations Network.
Other agencies will receive significant biodefense monies as well, including DHS, which has historically distributed monies to develop vaccines under the Bioshield program. |
