Savin' The Day

Like modern-day Ghostbusters, former congressmen Bob Graham and Jim Talent are popping up everywhere, intent on mobilizing forces to prepare for the inevitable bioterrorism attack that they say is just around the corner. They've developed an interim report to a final report due in January that discusses the progress (and lack thereof) against their report "World At Risk." USA Today gave them some space to warn us all.

The report obtained by USA TODAY cites failures on biosecurity policy by the White House, which the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction says has left the country vulnerable. The commission, created last year to address concerns raised by post-9/11 investigations, warns that anthrax spores released by a crop-duster could "kill more Americans than died in World War II" and the economic impact could exceed $1.8 trillion in cleanup and other costs.

The government's efforts "have not kept pace with the increasing capabilities and agility of those who would do harm to the United States," the report says. "The consequences of ignoring these warnings could be dire." Says commission Chairman Bob Graham, a Democratic former senator from Florida: "The clock is ticking."
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Commission Vice Chairman Jim Talent, a Republican former senator from Missouri, says: "The fact is, it is only getting easier and cheaper to develop and use biological weapons. ... It is essential that the U.S. government move more aggressively."

Now the real shame of this is that their initial report and this interim report in fact does have some good suggestions. These suggestions are lost, however, in the bullshit that flies so fast and loose from these two gentlemen that the initial reaction is to shrug off their insistent whiny demands that someone MUST address these shortfalls because "the clock is ticking." What a lame analogy. The interim report notes that an intel study (not the commission itself, as the USA Today article reports) believes that a 1-2 kg dump of anthrax over a city could kill more Americans than died in World War II. That's just insane. And the report seems to suggest that all a terrorist organization has to do is go out to the woods with a dustbuster, gather up some naturally occuring BW agent, toss it into a Veggie-Max, and whalla! Instant WMD capability.

The report notes that the Obama administration needs a senior biodefense advisor on the National Security Council because the WMD Coordinator isn't cutting it. And I agree with that - Gary Samore is interested in Iranian and North Korean nukes, and while he may have staff looking at bioterrorism issues, I don't see any action going on. Then again, while the Clinton and Bush administration had "senior biodefense advisors" on the NSC, I wasn't real impressed by them either. The report also notes:

In a positive step, the National Security Council (NSC) is developing a Bioweapons Prevention Strategy, but had not yet finalized it at the time this interim progress report was prepared. Encouragingly, it held several meetings this year, with a broad array of stakeholders, including experts from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), think tanks, and universities, as well as government officials.

This will be interesting, when/if it emerges from the White House. I haven't heard anything about this report - the NSC has been focusing on the QDR and NPR - but I did hear rumors of this effort. The report also screams about nuclear proliferation and terrorism, but nothing that' s really new or interesting. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Lots of unnecessary hype that overshadows the few good points in this report. George Smith, however, found out something interesting.

The USA Today story does not mention that two staffers/collaborators of Tara O'Toole's -- Randy Larsen and Gigi Kwik-Gronval -- are currently in the employ of the Graham-Talent commission writing press releases. And what's notable about this that both have been O'Toole's water-bearers.

Tara O'Toole, in case readers do not recall, was chosen to be 'geek-in-chief' at the Department of Homeland Security by the Obama administration, a choice that I called: "[A] superb appointment if you’re in the biodefense industry and interested in further opportunity and growth ... Alternatively, a disaster if threat assessment and prevention ought to have some basis in reality."

In particular, Dr. Tara O'Toole and the lobbying group Alliance for Biosecurity called for the investment of $3.4 billion into medical countermeasures addressing biological warfare agents - a statement that is repeated in the Graham-Talent interim report. So one has to wonder, do the two former congressmen recognize that they are fronting for the pharmaceutical industry or are they just so desperate for attention that they will grab any illogical postions and out-of-context threat assessments? In any case, they really, really need to find a new song and dance routine. It's getting boring.

Comments

[AndroidBoy]

I hate it when biological weapons are called WMD's. Where's the destruction? I want some property damage, dammit! Biological weapons suck. They depend on too many environmental factors to be effective, and you can't be sure that they won't cause some unforseen pandemic that ends up killing your own grandmother. Then there's the lack of impact. A person who blows themselves up on a bus gets news coverage, and that's a big part of terrorism. Some would say the biggest part. Bioweapons creep up on you slowly. BORING! I can hear the fearmongers already. "But Android-they're inexpensive and easily made!" Conventional explosives are a tried-and-true weapon and they're a lot cheaper and easier to make than bio-weapons.
There's always some loser trying to make a buck off of our insecurities. These guys aren't even good at that. The World at Risk...P-Shaw! If you want to get people really scared you need a boogeyman under the bed, not halfway around the world. Satanic ritual abuse, drug abuse, bio-terror...it's all a ploy to get $$$ for speaking engagements and if you've got something to sell, so much the better!
Duh-oosh-bags!

[NVH]

Look, if you don't like, run for Congress, the ONLY people who read this dreck other than those of that can understand how to really do a bio attack are these idiots who pay the private sector guys to come up with new stuff to counter this threat. Now, I'll go along and say we've got nukes locked up pretty tight and say bio has usurped to number 1 on the list, because I could do this stuff in my basement and go spread it on the local salad bar. No I'm not going to kill a bunch of people, but it took years to figure out this local cult was doing it, and look how long it took to find Ivins. I've done the math, I live far enough outside of DC and the plume to survive the 10kt terror bomb that MIGHT happen one day before I die. And I've got the pistol to snipe the zombie refugees that head this way. So I'm good on that end. What I can't stand is salad bar cult over again and they hype I'm going to have to hear from the media, and then cooking at home ALL the time...cause you know one day these FDA alerts on bad spinach are going to hit something I like, like desserts. Just let the congressmen talk to get money so that I can eat out and have my ho-hos..or run for congress and do it intelligently. Either way, as long as I have ho-hos...and Milk.

[Randall Larsen]

Before you take cheap shots at someone who served in uniform for 32 years and flew 400 combat missions, I suggest you get your facts straight.

If I was a shill for big pharma, I wouldn’t be living in a small apartment and driving a Honda. There are many things I don’t like about pharmaceutical companies, just like the things I don’t like about the homeland security industrial complex and military industrial complex. (See OUR OWN WORST ENEMY, Warner Books, 2007) However, there are certain things we need from these groups to defend this nation. From pharma we need the capability to produce vaccine and therapeutics rapidly and less expensively than we do today, whether we are talking about the threat of bioterrorism or Mother Nature.

Here is a good data point for your consideration from the former Dean of the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins.

“About 9.6 million doses of vaccine have been distributed by October 22 this year. For comparison, 30 million doses were distributed by end October in 1957! A toast to 52 years of progress in our ability to produce influenza vaccine under emergency circumstances.”

Regarding your comment on being a water-bearer for Dr. O’Toole…while serving as the chairman of the Department of Military Strategy and Operations at the National War College I gave lectures on the threat of bioterrorism—a subject I had been studying since 1994, which was six years before I met Dr. O’Toole. Tara O’Toole is a good friend and trusted colleague, but she doesn’t need me to carry her water.

[J.]

Randy, no one is questioning your service record or your sincerity. However, one has to wonder about the willingness of the Graham-Talent team to accept the Alliance for Biosecurity's funding suggestions. You and I (and Dr. O'Toole) know very well the problems that BioShield has, and throwing billions of dollars more into that process is not going to produce one vial of vaccine more than what is currently in the pipeline (anthrax and smallpox).

Giving more money to DOD's TMTI will not do a damn thing to answer the challenge of addressing emerging biothreats either, despite the billions moving in that program, but that's for another post. Instead of calling for more money for the pharmaceuticals, what you, Dr. O'Toole, and the G-T team ought to be doing is calling out the FDA for its inefficiencies and recommending how we close "the valley of death" by developing better processes and fully manning FDA to the point where it can quickly evaluate the efficacy and safety of medical countermeasures.

[Gigi Kwik Gronvall, Center for Biosecurity of UPMC]

J has some interesting arguments that I'd love to discuss, and of course I am all for making the resources of the FDA match its mandate. However, clarification: the funding suggestions were not from the Alliance for Biosecurity, they were from UPMC, and they were based entirely on historical data from how much other drugs and vaccines cost. It IS a lot of money, but this is data we are dealing with, not wishful thinking. The full methodology and conclusions can be found in the nature biotech article here: http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v26/n9/full/nbt0908-981.html
-- Gigi Kwik Gronvall