Holey Bad Nominations, Batman!

Yesterday's shock to my system...

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals for key administration posts: Tara O'Toole, Under Secretary for Science & Technology, Department of Homeland Security and Laurie O. Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs, Department of Justice.

President Obama said, "The proven expertise and commitment these individuals bring to the table make them valuable additions to my administration as we tackle the many challenges our nation faces. I am confident that they will be effective advocates on behalf of the American people, and I look forward to working with them in the coming months and years."

No, Dr. O'Toole is NOT the right person to be the Under Secretary for Science and Technology. I concur with the critics' concerns noted in this DangerRoom post.

“This is a disastrous nomination. O’Toole supported every flawed decision and counterproductive policy on biodefense, biosafety, and biosecurity during the Bush Administration,” Rutgers University microbiologist and homeland security policy critic Richard Ebright tells Danger Room. “O’Toole is as out of touch with reality, and as paranoiac, as former Vice President Cheney. It would be hard to think of a person less well suited for the position.”

“She was the single more extreme person, either in or out of government, advocating for a massive biodefense expansion and relaxation of provisions for safety and security,” he adds. “She makes Dr. Strangelove look sane.”

O’Toole rose to prominence in biodefense circles after producing Dark Winter, a June 2001 exercise that explored how a single smallpox outbreak could threaten millions of lives in 15 countries. An Army War College report later found that the exercise tripled the normal transmission rate for smallpox — mak[ing] it next to impossible for the game players to do very much to contain the outbreak, and assur[ing] a disastrous outcome irrespective of whatever control measures the players may attempt to carry out.” Atlantic Storm, a 2005 exercise also produced by O’Toole, had similar issues. According to the report, it made “grossly misleading assumptions” about the ease of creation and dispersion of the same biological agent — assuming bioterrorists would enjoy a capability that neither the Americans nor Soviets could achieve at the heights of the Cold War.

She's the wrong person for this job. You really need a more well-rounded technical expert who will address the needs of all of DHS's subordinate elements, not just a bio expert who is at the top of the "it's not a question of if..." crowd. Bad enough to have her talking about a terrorist anthrax incident being worse than a nuclear attack in New York City. She would increase funding for BioWatch and BioShield, two DHS programs that are not performing well. The solution is certainly not to pour more funds into the program.

I'm betting that someone in the Obama administration thought, hey, she's been in front of Congress several times testifying on bioterrorism, it's the flavor of the month, so she's "vetted." What could go wrong? But there are so many other better qualified people out there.

UPDATE: I should clarify my concerns. We can argue about the severity of the bioterrorism threat - and Dr. O'Toole does certainly overblow the threat - but my more responsible side says that the real danger is getting such a single-tracked mind at the top of DHS's S&T Directorate. There are a lot of S&T requirements in DHS, and bioterrorism ought not be at the top. That's more DHHS territory. Also see George Smith's post here.

Comments

[B]

WOW! This goes to show the new administration is out of touch! I use to work in S&T at DHS when guys like Dr. John Vitko and the other "Doctors" from the National labs were all vying for senior positions - in the end these folks are very smart people but they ARE NOT managers - case in point - O'Toole - very bright lady (book sense) however she has ZERO Management ability and even worse (based on personal experience) she does not take advise well - I have worked with her and the Bio-Watch Group over the past several years - not once has she been helpful to the programmatic aspects of making the system more user friendly - totally agree - very bad nomination - the litmus test will be funding issues that will eventually plague S&T of which she has no background

B

[B]

Hello - not to mention she is a comrade of the "fish lady" Dr McCarthy!

[Jennifer Nuzzo]

I have had the pleasure of working with Dr. O'Toole for more than 6 years and I have to push back on several points.

First, you should judge her management ability by her track record. She has led large and complicated programs to success. Her employees are fiercely loyal (as you can probably guess). I have no doubts that those at DHS who will have the honor of working with her will feel similarly.

Second, there is no reason to think that she will be single-minded in her focus at DHS. Dr. O'Toole is one of the greatest minds in the nation. She has an incredible ability to think broadly and across many disciplines (as evidenced by her work in medicine, public health, environmental protection, worker safety, nuclear weapons, biological agents and natural epidemics). I have met few people who are able to to match her ability to grasp new and complex subjects with ease.

Third, Dr. O'Toole is acutely aware of the programmatic issues at DHS. She has, in fact, been quite critical of BioWatch and has called for improvements in cross-agency collaboration and government contracting (both of which have hindered BioShield).

[nerdgirl]

Dang ... O'Toole is getting hauled across metaphorical coals by blog-o-shere, including by some folks I respect greatly: Dick Ebright/Rutgers, Milton Leitenburg, UMD, and you – Jason.

Concur completely w/r/t criticism of Dark Winter exercise as bioterrorism hype - the epidemiological modeling was *way* off, to put it diplomatically. One might ask what lesson and was it the best lesson DHS learned from Dark Winter w/r/t modeling for its TOP OFF series of exercises.

O’Toole has always struck me as easy to work with, willing to listen to new voices, and inquisitive (agree with Nuzzo there). Blaming O'Toole for the at-times.more oft than not bioterrorism-hype paranoia strikes me like blaming Ford Motor Company for DUIs. I have previously thought about doing a historical tracing to see how the Dark Winter event has influenced the last 10 years w/r/t prominence of (perceived) bioterrorism (vs biological weapons) threat. If she is confirmed that might be just the impetus .

Ebright and Leitenburg have emerged as the leading critics of biodefense policy over the last 8 years. Both I respect greatly. Don't always agree with either, but they serve an incredibly valuable reality-check for the 'group think'/consensus even among the best of intended thinking. Iconoclasts are undervalued.

I wonder if this is intentional, like the non-traditional nominee of Andy Weber for ATSD(NCB), which has (always ?) previously been a nuke guy.

As I thought more about this nomination overnight & this morning, I'm leaning toward less desirable. There is no question that O'Toole is a smart and effective leader. She is, however, by training an MD MPH not a scientist or engineer. DHS S&T is a lot more than medical biodefense!

Within the DoD Chemical and Biological Defense (CBDP) community, “non-medical" (as it literally was called in the DoD for decades) still suffers as the poor-stepchild to "medical.” At least now they are the “medical” and “physical” communities. It’s not unheard of, however, to still here some one quip “medical” and “non-medical.” DHS S&T is a lot more than just chemical and biological countermeasures – that’s one of six divisions in DHS S&T (http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/editorial_0531.shtm).

Now there are MDs who potentially have the breadth of leadership and management skill to cover all of DHS S&T. I have previously seen only rare examples of MDs who were interested or able to step up & beyond that. And do agree that understanding programmatics – including the limits of traditional programmatic/major acquisitions policy for S&T – is not something that I’m sure O’Toole has demonstrated (agree with “B” … altho’ am open to counter-evidence to the contrary). Perhaps O’Toole will step up and be such. And I do imagine that she is getting major tutorials on explosives detection, non-medical/health surveillance, critical infrastructure, command and control, and maritime S&T.

[nerdgirl]

"hear" not "here" ...

[Aaron]

I found the Danger Room follow up to be persuasive. And of course the fact that she has colleagues posting favorable comments under their real names, I also find persuasive.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/colleagues-mount-quick-defense-for-dhs-chief-geek-pick/