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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's efforts to prepare for and respond to man-made and naturally occurring calamities would receive $1.53 billion under the fiscal 2011 budget of its parent agency, the Health and Human Services Department (see GSN, Jan. 26).
The request is $16 million less than the agency received in this fiscal year for terrorism response and emergency preparedness.
Of the amount, $592 million would be set aside for the nation's Strategic National Stockpile of medicines and other countermeasures for treating victims of a WMD event or other large-scale disaster. That is $4 million less than allocated for fiscal 2010.
Another $758 million would be directed toward preparedness and response capabilities at the state and local levels, while CDC while efforts in the same area would receive $183 million (U.S. Health and Human Services Department budget, Feb. 1).
The Health and Human Services Department has requested a total of $911 billion for fiscal 2011, which begins Oct. 1.
The budget proposal contains $476 million for the agency's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a funding boost of $136 million from this year, according to a HHS release. The authority's duties include management of Project Bioshield, a program intended to spur production of WMD countermeasures.
"This funding will sustain the support of next-generation countermeasure development in high priority areas including anthrax and acute radiation syndrome by allowing the Bioshield Special Reserve Fund to support both procurement activities and advanced research and development," according to the release (U.S. Health and Human Services Department release I, Feb. 1).
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Monday that a thorough review would be undertaken of "our entire countermeasure production process from the laboratory to the doctor’s office."
The review's findings are expected back by the end of March, she said during a budget briefing.
"We want to have more promising discoveries, more advanced development, more robust manufacturing, better stockpiling and more effective distribution practices," Sebelius said. "Our ultimate goal is to have the kind of biodefense system that is so dependable and robust that potential terrorists give up and say, 'It’s not worth the effort,' and when Mother Nature strikes we are ready to respond" (U.S. Health and Human Services Department release II, Feb. 1).
The spending plan would also permit an expansion from four to eight pilot projects in a U.S. Postal Services program to distribute emergency medical treatments in the wake of a biological attack, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported (see GSN, Jan. 4; Lisa Schnirring, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, Feb. 1).