As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) locks in its budget priorities, on the potential chopping block is the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC)—a potentially devastating public health concern, one expert says.
That center, which aided governmental response to the Ebola outbreak of 2014 and was formed after the anthrax letter attacks in 2001, would be forced under President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2018 to halt all science as of March 2018 and shutter its doors by September 2018.
The NBACC in Fort Detrick, Maryland, designed to defend the nation against biological threats, is the first national laboratory created by DHS. Its work supports preparedness response and planning, and its national security biocontainment laboratory can analyze biological threats as they emerge.
It is, of course, but one piece of a greater whole. The current administration is looking for cuts to be made, and in the case of the NBACC, the facility is one of three labs facing elimination for the sake of $40 million in savings. At the same time, the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response faces $136 million in cuts and the Center for Disease Control’s total budget could be slashed by as much as 17 percent.
The proposals have drawn sharp criticism from Dr. Thomas R. Frieden—the retired director of the CDC who led its 2014 Ebola response—and U.S. Rep. John K. Delaney (D-MD), among others.
Now, as the budget gets hammered out, Daniel M. Gerstein, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, spoke with Homeland Preparedness News on Monday about the impact the facility’s closure would have on the nation’s biodefense position. Gerstein is a former acting Under Secretary and Deputy Under Secretary in DHS’s Science & Technology Directorate.
In the last 40 to 60 years, Gerstein said, hundreds of new diseases have cropped up across the world—be they altogether new, or simply new to the population. The country and the world have not proven ready to handle a true public health crisis, he notes.
“Look at Ebola—when you look at how we responded you would have to be pretty concerned about our reaction from a number of perspectives,” Gerstein said. “First: the local Ebola outbreak in Africa was allowed to continue to fester before the international community got involved. That tells us we’re not ready to deal with these things. But even once the international community got involved, things were slow. A number of people—doctors included—were infected.”
He also pointed to Congressional response to the Zika scare—and the still ongoing debate over whether to spray for mosquitoes potentially carrying it. Slowness, it would seem, has been a byword of governmental response.
“If you’re going to survive these naturally occurring outbreaks, you have to be able to react rather rapidly,” Gerstein said.
Which raises another issue: if the government’s response has already been inadequate, eliminating funds to the very sources of research and preparation could make things potentially much, much worse. Facilities like the NBACC, Gerstein said, are expensive, but they are also an insurance policy against things that might happen. Its closure, he added, could be catastrophic.
“Back in 2001, we did not have this facility and it literally took months in order to do the forensics analysis of samples,” Gerstein said. “One document I saw said they had to outsource it to 12 different facilities to get everything analyzed back then. Today, the NBACC can do these forensic analyses in a couple days. It’s unique.”
He also cited examples from the Ebola crisis, where scientists at the facility conducted tests
to see how long the Ebola virus would remain active once it was put on, say, a stainless steel countertop or an airplane carpet, and how best to decontaminate the areas. “They tried a number of different solutions to find what worked most efficiently. It’s a one-of-a-kind facility,” he said.
The building, he noted, could be replaced. His concern comes from what it provides—and what the country might potentially lose if no one else picked up that capability. Give it to another department as a secondary mandate, they may or may not embrace it. Another alternative the Trump administration appears to be trumpeting is one of private involvement—the notion that more federal science should be left to the private sector to investigate.
“We have to make sure whatever happens at the end of the budget cycle, that people are clear-eyed on the decisions made,” Gerstein said. “I don’t even think it’s reasonable to eliminate a capability like this and replace it in some way. I imagine the cost to replace it will be more expensive just by the nature of things.”
Also on the potential chopping block under the proposed budget are the Chemical Security Analysis Center in Maryland, which aims to identify vulnerabilities and respond to potential chemical threats, and the National Urban Security Technology Laboratory in New York City that provides services to first responders to help them prepare for and respond to homeland security threats.