Senator approves plan to redirect state bioterrorism funding

A senior Republican senator gave his approval Tuesday for the Health and Human Services Department to pull $55 million from state bioterrorism budgets and redirect the funding to protect individual cities and rapidly distribute vaccines throughout the U.S. Postal Service.

Public health groups and a senior Democratic senator are saying the move will severely hamper state bioterrorism preparedness efforts.

The plan was laid out in a May 19 letter from HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson to members of Congress. Department officials plan to take more than $1 million from each state to fund several other initiatives, such as biological defense programs in 21 of the nation's largest cities; a Postal Service program to deliver medicines in the event of a biological attack; a biological weapons detection effort known as BioSense; and an expanded federal quarantine capacity. About $27 million would be put toward the city biodefense initiative. The Postal Service would receive $12 million.

"Public health officials will work closely with the United States Postal Service to test and implement procedures to use its expertise and capacity to distribute materials citywide in a short time period," Thompson said in his letter. "$12 million will be provided to the USPS to pay for the training, supplies and equipment needed to assist these cities."

Because the money was already allocated in a congressional appropriations bill, Thompson was required to explain the funding shift to Congress. He notified the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, which had until next week to approve or block the move. Subcommittee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., indicated Tuesday, however, that he will allow the plan to proceed.

"I have no objection at this time to your proposal … to make specific and rapid improvements in readiness in areas where we have significant vulnerability," Specter wrote.

The decision to move the funding was necessary "in a time of tight federal budgets," according to Charles Robbins, a Specter spokesman.

The subcommittee's ranking member, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has protested the development of new proposals at the expense of existing homeland security programs.

"This just isn't the right way to do it," said Maureen Knightly, a Harkin spokeswoman. "The money should not be taken away from the states."

A broad assortment of public health advocacy groups have also opposed the move. The American Public Health Association, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the National Association of City and County Health Officials, Trust for America's Health, and the National Governors Association have all called on Congress to block the funding reallocation. Critics said the nation's biological defenses are too important to face budget shortfalls and tough decisions. Several groups said the new proposals should be given their own line of funding and states should keep their fiscal 2004 bioterrorism money.

"Both are important and should be funded, it shouldn't be an either-or proposition," said Michael Earls, a spokesman for Trust for America's Health. Last December, that organization released a report which found states are not yet ready to handle a bioterrorism incident.

"Shifting money from one preparedness initiative to another is not the solution for nationwide bioterrorism readiness, especially when states show ongoing areas of vulnerability," Earls said.