Dr. Robert Kadlec, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will present the keynote address during a March 7 seminar in Brussels for members of the European Parliament and will discuss “CBRN — An Invisible Risk. Is Europe sufficiently prepared?”
“This is a question we are trying to answer during our seminar, by inviting experts and actors from different areas related to this subject,” Lucian Goleanu, press officer for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group in the European Parliament, told Homeland Preparedness News.
“It is very difficult to say how well prepared is the European Union in case of a CRBN attack, but the most important thing is prevention, awareness, and of course a coordinated reaction to minimize effects in case this happens,” Goleanu wrote today in emailed responses to several interview questions.
ALDE is the political group within the European Parliament that assisted in organizing the seminar, which happens to have the same title as Dr. Kadlec’s speech.
Unfortunately, the topic is timely.
“Recent reports and studies provided a good reason to believe that threats arising from the deliberate use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) materials remain high and are evolving,” Hilde Vautmans, a Member of European Parliament (MEP) representing Belgium, and an ALDE member, wrote in the seminar invitation. “The future threats are likely to come from the use of chemical and biological weapons.”
“Chemical weapons have already been used in Iraq and Syria and there are indications that organizations such as ISIS are experimenting [with] biological weapons,” according to Vautmans. “Within the scope of defense and security and due to EU’s still fragile capacity on such extremely sensitive security areas, we decided to prompt a seminar with top specialists that can help to understand the present status quo on CBRN.”
Dr. Kadlec is a top choice to lead off the seminar based on his office’s high-profile, critical duties in the United States federal government, where it focuses on preparedness and response; building federal emergency medical operational capabilities; medical countermeasures (MCM) research, development and procurement; and grants to fortify hospitals and health care systems during public health emergencies and medical disasters. The Office of the ASPR was created under the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) after Hurricane Katrina hit and provides U.S. government support through ASPR’s National Disaster Medical System, which augments state and local efforts during emergencies and disasters.
Two of the main authorities for the Office of the ASPR are oversight of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which handles the development and purchase of the nation’s vaccines, drugs, therapies and diagnostic tools for public medical emergencies, and the Office of Emergency Management, which supports state and local partners when requested and prepares the nation’s health care system, among other functions.
According to ALDE, growing concerns exist amid increased geopolitical tensions that terrorist groups, lone wolves or rogue nations will use some sort of CBRN weapon to launch bio-attacks in a European country. International counter-terrorism experts also consider a CBRN weapon attack possible, according to ALDE, which said countries have slowly started increasing their levels of preparedness in response to such risks.
In October 2017, the European Commission released its Action Plan, which includes improved preparedness items against CBRN security risks as part of its comprehensive anti-terrorism package.
The European Parliament also follows the situation closely, Goleanu said. “We had many debates in plenary especially after the terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, Nice, London, Berlin, Barcelona, etc., on the European Union’s vulnerability and what we can improve to prevent these attacks,” said Goleanu.
The EU’s goals in this area, Goleanu said, are to reduce the accessibility of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) materials across its Member States; ensure a better preparedness for and response to CBRN incidents; build stronger internal-external links and engage more with key international partners regarding CBRN security; and to promote and enhance its knowledge of CBRN risks by creating an EU CBRN security network.
ALDE members likewise consider ample and timely preparedness essential to a region-wide plan and they recommend that the EU make it a high priority, much the same as Kadlec has testified to members of Congress in the U.S., and likely what he’ll relay during his March 7 discussion since the same concerns are widespread in America regarding CBRN agents and threats.
In fact, Kadlec has gone so far as to tell U.S. lawmakers that HHS doesn’t have the funding it needs to combat public health threats, leaving the country less prepared than it should be to respond to a CBRN threat or a pandemic.
Most recently, Kadlec testified before members of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee during a Jan. 17 hearing kickstarting reauthorization of PAHPA, which is set to expire in September.
Continuous funding and an ongoing commitment to BARDA’s Medical Countermeasures Enterprise is needed in the U.S., and overall funding must increase, testified Kadlec, who compared his office’s mission of protecting the nation’s more than 320 million people with its inadequate budget to that of operating with half an aircraft carrier. “And that’s a challenge,” he said. “We have a $3.3 trillion healthcare system, of which we invest $250 million for preparedness. It’s a drop in the bucket.”
Kadlec suggested that Congress authorize an HHS emergency response account containing roughly $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion, based on the costs associated with fighting previous pandemics, and direct the HHS Secretary to manage the fund and distribute monies across HHS or to states. And to get such funds deployed rapidly, he said.
But Kadlec also has pointed out that the challenges associated with deliberate CBRN attacks particularly involving biological agents should not be confused with natural disease outbreaks. Biological attacks, he has testified to Congress, can have the lethal equivalence of a thermonuclear weapon. A deliberate-thinking enemy could employ multiple CBRN agents in overwhelming doses that are resistant to common treatments, Kadlec has said.
Response to bioterrorism, he has advised, requires speed and a multifaceted effort that’s more complex than that used to combat natural disease outbreaks. He may suggest that the EU also maintain a fiscally strong and capable public health and medical infrastructure to respond to catastrophic events; and promote robust MCM development, manufacturing and distribution as part of its plan going forward, among other suggestions.
Following Kadlec’s speech, there are two panel discussions scheduled during the seminar. Panel 1, Military and Civil Cooperation and Crisis Management, will be moderated by Dr. Miguel Ferreira da Silva, an international affairs and defense specialist, who will query Emmanuel Saliot, an advisor on security and defense at the Council of the EU, and Hans Das, who heads the terrorism and radicalization unit at the European Commission. They will focus their discussion on the challenges associated with CBRN terrorism.
The second panel, Outbreaks: Containment Management, Decontamination Capabilities and Economic Consequences, will be moderated by Urmas Paet, an MEP and member of ALDE, and a former Estonian Foreign Affairs Minister, who will discuss health security issues with Maurizio Barbeschi, a scientist with the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, and Benjamin Queyriaux, a NATO International Military Staff medical advisor.