Sens. Murray, Burr release discussion draft of PREVENT Pandemics Act in effort to improve public health systems

Trying to bolster U.S. public health and medical preparedness and response systems after COVID-19 exposed their flaws, U.S. Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Richard Burr (R-NC) have released a discussion draft of a new bill calling for overhaul across the board.

Known as the Prepare for and Respond to Existing Viruses, Emerging New Threats, and Pandemics Act (PREVENT Pandemics Act), the bipartisan legislation follows examinations of the nation’s responses, both successful and not, to the ongoing pandemic. Its discussion draft borrows ideas from both sides of the political aisle, and among other important changes, would create a new Independent COVID-19 task force to properly review and evaluate the COVID-19 response, as well as its gaps and breakdowns. 

“The PREVENT Pandemics Act also takes action to address several of the longstanding challenges that have undermined our pandemic response from the start—like strengthening our medical supply chains, improving our public health data systems and workforce, updating the development process for tests, treatments and vaccines, combatting misinformation, and more,” Murray, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said. “We’ve all seen how damaging it is when communities can’t get tests, health care facilities can’t get masks, public health experts can’t get comprehensive data, and families can’t get clear reliable information. We’re painfully aware of how the trauma of a pandemic can worsen a mental health crisis and magnify damaging health inequities in communities.”

Both senators noted that ongoing discussion will draw from colleagues, as well as state, local, Tribal and territorial health experts and officials. Burr credited the government for the fastest development and distribution of safe and effective vaccines and treatments against an emerging infectious disease to date. However, he pointed to ongoing systemic and cultural failures at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), inconsistent guidance, and broken supply chains as major focuses of consideration and reform.

“The CDC reforms in this draft are just the beginning of what is needed,” Burr, ranking member of the HELP Committee, said. “Demanding accountability and transparency from the CDC is a critical first step to ensuring that the agency provides clear and timely recommendations that Americans find trustworthy. The draft also strengthens our countermeasure enterprise through advancing critical research in this field and in FDA’s development and review of these tests, treatments, and vaccines to improve readiness for future threats and bolstering the use of cutting-edge adaptable platform technologies and advanced manufacturing approaches.”

Proposed reforms include:

• Improved strategy and coordination between public health preparedness agencies
• Strengthened supply chain and government stockpiles of medical supplies
• Senate confirmation of future CDC Directors and an agency-wide strategic plan
• Improve capabilities to detect and monitor emerging infectious diseases and other threats while updating public health data to improve response
• Enhancing development and review of tests, treatments, and vaccines while alleviating critical shortages of medical products
• Tackling disparities that add to burdens of already at-risk populations and communities
• Improved public health communication and efforts to counter misinformation
• Rejuvenation of the ailing public and community health workforce
• Accelerated biomedical research into medical countermeasures for pandemic threats, as well as the long-term effects of COVID-19 and faster test development
• Guaranteed access to mental health and substance use disorder services during public health emergency responses

Feedback on the draft must be submitted by Feb. 4, 2022.