Posted on 11/05/2005 12:17:44 PM PST by FairOpinion
Some scientists fear resources set aside for a new anti-bioterrorism center will be taken away from existing agencies doing similar work
WASHINGTON -- Legislation moving rapidly through the Senate would create a secretive national research center to respond to bioterror threats and natural disease outbreaks.
But some scientists cautioned Friday that the new agency could draw money away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health and disrupt their work.
The measure, said to be a priority of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., would shift the main responsibility for developing bioterrorism countermeasures out of the Department of Homeland Security and into the Biological Advanced Research and Development Agency in the Department of Health and Human Services.
The agency would be given a first-year budget of $1 billion and some unusually strong powers:
* Authority to shield drug manufacturers from liability lawsuits if a drug used to counteract a bioterrorism event or disease outbreak caused death or injury.
* Exemption from the federal open records law, the Freedom of Information Act.
The legislation creating the agency was introduced by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., on Oct. 17 and approved the next day by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Frist is one of five Republican co-sponsors.
In a June speech at Harvard University, Frist warned that the world may soon face "a front of unchecked and virulent epidemics, the potential of which should rise above your every other concern."
"I propose an unprecedented effort, the creation of a Manhattan Project for the 21st century, not with the goal of creating a new destructive agent but to defend against infectious diseases and biological weapons."
Burr spokesman Doug Heye confirmed Friday that the Biological Advanced Research and Development Agency would carry out that project.
Heye said Burr's staff was negotiating with aides to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to get a bipartisan bill to the Senate floor as soon as possible.
Scientific groups, some of which have been critical of the slow response by the Department of Homeland Security in identifying and counteracting bioterrorism threats, warned that the bill could disrupt existing disease agencies.
The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology said in a letter to Burr that it was "troubled over the impact this new agency might have on existing programs at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, particularly in an era of limited funding for discretionary spending."
"Our concern is BARDA might duplicate, constrain or even eliminate these programs," said Bruce Bistrian, a Harvard Medical School researcher who is president of the federation.
Focusing research specifically on bioterror and pandemics, i.e. serious and deadly contagious diseases and their prevention makes a lot of sense. Long overdue.
"Biological Advanced Research and Development Agency in the Department of Health and Human Services. "
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In rereading the article, I noted the above. I am concerend about this. It should be in the Dept. of Homeland Security, the HHS is too likely to pull the BARDA funding and spend it on feeding welfare recipients.
"But some scientists cautioned Friday that the new agency could draw money away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health and disrupt their work."
Right, don't worry about what's best for the nation, just protect your little fifedom, there's plenty of money to go around.
Exactly! Good point.
This is not news actually. UT has been looked at for a very long time, as has A&M. Secretary McCreary (sp) in Homeland Defense is a good ole Texas boy. He's visited the UT campus a time or two since 9/11.
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