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Security Beat
WMD Commission: ‘We’re Not Going Away’
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By Stew Magnuson
Congress authorized a commission in 2008 to assess how the nation was doing in its efforts to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.
The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, chaired by former Sens. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Jim Talent, R-Mo., delivered its report in late 2008, and then received a year-long extension to produce a report card on how the government was doing.
That report card was delivered in January. The extension is about to run out, and won’t be renewed. However, Talent, Graham and other members of the staff have formed a nonprofit, the Bipartisan WMD Research Center.
“We’re not a lame duck. We’re not going away,” said Retired Air Force Col. Randall J. Larsen, who served as the commission’s executive director. Expect another report card next January, he told a Women in Defense gathering in Arlington, Va.
The nonprofit’s focus will be on bioterrorism, rather than nuclear weapons, he said. The nation collectively received an “F” for its efforts to enhance the capabilities for rapid response to prevent biological attacks from inflicting mass casualties. Some media erroneously reported that the Obama administration received a failing grade, but that’s not the case, Larsen said. Congress, as well as the executive branch and state and local agencies, all have failed to prepare the nation for a catastrophic bio-attack, he said.
The proliferation of technologies that create such weapons makes this threat far more likely than nuclear terrorism, he said, repeating some of the conclusion of the commission.
The nonprofit’s overarching message will be preparedness. The nation needs the ability to quickly diagnose and detect a biological attack, improve the stockpiles of vaccines and ensure that hospitals are prepared to handle surges in patients, he said.
“On the bio-side, we have a lot of work to do,” he said. Vaccines are still grown in chicken eggs, which is the way it has been done for 60 years. The United States should launch an effort to develop quicker and more efficient methods to produce vaccines, Larsen said.
All these steps can be accomplished by Congress with legislation, and cost relatively little money compared to big-ticket Pentagon weapons systems. This would also help the public health community’s ability to respond to naturally occurring outbreaks such as the flu, he said. The government had a five-month warning on the H1N1 virus, but still could not deliver the needed vaccines in time, he noted.
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