From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Watchdog Report: Federal Efforts to Develop
Biosurveillance Capability

Audio interview by GAO staff with Bill Jenkins, Director, Homeland
Security and Justice

Associated Report Number: GAO-10-645

Released on: June 30, 2010

[ Background Music ]

[ Narrator: ] Welcome GAO's Watch Dog Report, your source for news and
information from the Government Accountability Office. It's June 30,
2010. Biosurveillance allows the federal government to provide early
awareness and detection of potentially catastrophic biological events,
such as pandemic diseases and attacks with biological weapons. A group
led by Bill Jenkins, a Director in GAO's Homeland Security and Justice
team, recently examined federal efforts to develop national
biosurveillance capability. GAO's Scott Golden sat down with Bill to
learn more.

[Scott Golden: ] What is biosurveillance capability and why is it
important to national security?

[ Bill Jenkins: ] Biosurveillance has essentially two components: first
is the early detection of a dangerous biological agent that could have
catastrophic consequences, and the second is the context of that agent,
that is where did it come from, who can it affect, how's it likely to
spread, what could be the consequences for the nation. And the reason
that it's important is because of a couple of things. One, we’ve already
had two terrorists' attacks with Anthrax in the United States, and
Anthrax is an agent that can be aerosolized, that is it can spread
through the air. Secondly, is that there’s been a new disease discovered
in the United States and the world every year since the 1970s. There are
40 now  dangerous diseases that did not exist in the 1970s and they
mutate over time, and so we need to...just because we know about flu, as
we found with H1N1, doesn't mean we that we know about new flu that may
come along. And the other thing is that we live in an interconnected
world and in that world there are millions of people and millions of
tons of goods that circulate around the world everyday. And the sheer
volume makes it easy for a dangerous pathogen to enter the United States
undetected and so it's important that we have some ability when
something occurs to be able to identify that pathogen and what its
particular consequences may be.

[Scott Golden: ] Can you discuss the federal government's current state
of commitment to developing a national biosurveillance capability?

[ Bill Jenkins: ] Well, there a number of agencies—at least 12 federal
agencies—that have some active biosurveillance activities going on. The
broadest of those are the Department of Agriculture, Department of
Health and Human Services—all of those have various kinds of networks
out there whether they’re rural agricultural agents or they’re public
health people or others who are providing information to them about
unusual events that are coming in and they are trying to determine what
the nature of those events are. So there's a lot of activity going in
the federal government. The issue is coordinating and integrating those
efforts.

[Scott Golden: ] So what challenges do the federal departments and
agencies face in meeting these biosurveillance goals?

[ Bill Jenkins: ] The most critical problem that they face is simply
personnel with the expertise to be able to identify a pathogen, you know
do the lab tests, be able to understand what the implications of that
are, etc. And so, that's the single biggest thing, having the people
with the skills and expertise that are needed to actually carry it out.
And both Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services both
have efforts to try to address that, by providing fellowships, training,
equipment to local public health departments, etc.

[Scott Golden: ] So what mechanisms or strategies are in place to help
guide the development of biosurveillance capability?

[ Bill Jenkins: ] Each of the agencies that are involved in this have
some strategy or some plan of their own of how they want to meet their
particular responsibilities as they see them. There are a couple of much
broader, national strategies—one by HHS on human health and another by
the White House on biosurveillance generally. Both of those strategies
recognize in the strategy itself that what is really needed is a
national framework, which is what we do not have currently.

[Scott Golden: ] Well, what recommendations is GAO making to these
agencies to help establish a national biosurveillance framework?

[ Bill Jenkins: ] All the agencies that are involved—I want to make very
clear, all are trying to do their best. But because this crosses so many
agencies and none of the agencies involved have the authority to give
direction or require the participation of other agencies—that because
it's above any single federal agency—our recommendation is that the
Homeland Security Counsel work with relevant federal agencies, like DHS
and HHS and Agriculture, to identify a national focal point for this
work and that national focal point would have both accountability and
responsibility and the resources to develop a nationwide framework for
this that could help set priorities.

[ Background Music ]

[ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO's Web site at gao.gov, and be
sure to tune in to the next edition of GAO's Watchdog Report for more
from the congressional watchdog, the Government Accountability Office.