Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense

Panel Members, Staff, and Ex Officios

The BRSPB is co-chaired by former Senator Joe Lieberman and former Governor Tom Ridge.

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Background

Between 2001 and 2014, the U.S. spent around $80 billion on biodefense. The BRSPB spent a year in meetings, interviews, and conducting research. It studied the 2001 anthrax attacks and it looked at each biodefense program enacted under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

In October 2015, BRSPB submitted its recommendations to Congress in the form of a report that was created after a year of deep study. The conclusion was this: the United States is not prepared to respond to a biological weapon attack. As for the cause of the problem, the report said, “Simply put, the nation does not afford the biological threat the same level of attention as it does other threats.”

The National Blueprint for Biodefense

BRSPB conducted a year-long research study of how the U.S. should address biological threats. In terms of “biological threats”, the study covered both man-made (terrorist and accidental) as well as natural threats. The study culminated in a report to the public and Congress released on October 28, 2015.

The group’s report was titled The National Blueprint for Biodefense.

The report described threats posed by the Islamic State, as well as “mishandling of lethal biological agents by the U.S. government,” as reasons for making biodefense preparedness a higher national priority. BRSPB’s final report had 33 recommendations and over 100 specific items associated with those recommendations.

The report proposes congressional oversight hearings on the following list of issues:

Identified problems

The BRSPB report said that there existed almost no urgency within the federal government for dealing with the risk of a biological event.

Issues not taken seriously

A major issue is that the government does not appear to take events related to biological safety seriously enough. One security expert concluded, "The tragic saga of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan from Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) serves as a perfect demonstration of the shambolic state of biodefense in the United States in late 2014." Another expert estimated that the consequences of inaction on BRSPB’s recommendations would be that the report would serve as a “guidebook for placing blame.”

Obsolete practices and procedures

Another major issue is the federal government's failure to update its practices and procedures as they relate to biological threats.

For example, currently there is a system within the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration that would fast-track the approval of medical countermeasures in the event of a biological attack. However, Tom Ridge told a Senate committee during a hearing that the fast-track process is obsolete. Page 52 of the report reads, “A systemic, risk averse culture has emerged that is stifling [medical countermeasures] innovation. If this continues to evolve, progress on biodefense objectives will be curtained and the still nascent biodefence industry will have little incentive to participate.”

Another example is the practice of stockpiling vaccines against a biological agent. This practice is now considered obsolete, the BRSPB concluded. Terrorist organizations are already able to “merge the toxic attributes of more than one agent.” To replace vaccine stockpiles, BRSPB recommended a “vaccines-on-demand approach.”

Proposed solutions

The National Blueprint for Biodefense, BRSPB's final report, laid out a series of solutions.

Major recommendations

The primary changes the U.S. government should take, according to the panel’s report, are the following:

Vice President's office

One of BRSPB’s major recommendations was to place responsibility of biodefense leadership into the hands of the Office of the Vice President of the United States. By doing so, biodefense would have “the ear of the president and the ability to coordinate budgets and plans across agencies,” the BRSPB said. In such a scenario, the White House Biodefense Coordination Council would execute the day-to-day work, Senator Lieberman said during testimony in front of the House Homeland Security Committee.

By placing responsibility for biodefense in the hands of the Vice President’s office, it would “transcend the bureaucratic and budgetary rivalries of various agencies in order to create an effective platform for dealing with biological attacks.”

Inclusion and expansion beyond terror threats

The report suggested that the government merge duplicate processes by including all biological threats, not just those from terrorism, into a national strategy. For example, the "OneHealth approach" is one recommendation made by BRSPB that would merge strategies for dealing with human and animal health biodefense programs.

"Innovation funds"

BRSPB called for new Innovation Funds at the National Institutes of Health, and for ten percent of those funds to be dedicated to building technology that would allow multiple antigens in a countermeasure to be delivered from a single platform. Similarly, BRSPB called for ten percent of funds from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) for the same purpose.

Command and control coordination

Dr. George told Homeland Prep News that in order for the government’s defense against a biological attack to be sufficient, a new comprehensive program needs to be develop. The programs and activities under a new approach would need to be “coordinated, collaborative and innovative.”

The report recommends that all types of biological threats should be included in a single, command-and-control strategy. By different types, they meant “biological warfare, bioterrorism, biocrimes, pandemic illness, and accidental release.”

Activities

The panel’s activities include research, discussion meetings, issuing a report, and testifying before Congress. The group held four meetings in which it discussed the current status of the country’s biodefense efforts.

Dr. George said that for 2016, BRSPB would focus its efforts on staying engaged with Congress to help it understand and make the improvements that the BRSPB report outlined.

Additionally, BRSPB teamed up with the Alliance for Biosecurity and Trust for America’ Health to conduct a survey of Americans’ thoughts about biosecurity. According to the Alliance for Biosecurity, Americans are concerned about biological threats.

In September 2016, the Open Philanthropy Project granted the panel a $1.3 million grant in support of the panel's influential leadership role in the evaluation of the nation’s biodefense systems. Tom Ridge said, "It is troubling that we still do not have a comprehensive approach to preparing for and responding to biological events. That is why this grant from Open Philanthropy is so critical. It will allow us to push forward the recommendations detailed in our National Blueprint and seek to put them into action."