Bush Budget Holds Steady for Civilian Biodefenses
By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration’s fiscal 2006 budget plans for civilian biological defense measures total at least $5.1 billion, according to a new nongovernmental analysis. The amount brings the total requested since 2001 to at least $27.7 billion (see GSN, Nov. 8, 2004).
The budget request includes increases for protecting national food and water supplies and a significant decrease for funding state and local public health departments, compared to requested spending last year.
The fiscal 2006 budgeting, an aggregate of spending across numerous agencies, reflects as much as a $2.5 billion drop from what was sought for fiscal 2005, but the decrease results mostly from the absence of one-time appropriation last year for drug and vaccine purchases through 2008 as part of the Project Bioshield law, according to the study by Ari Schuler, a government relations manager for Raydiance and a former research analyst at the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, located in Baltimore, Md.
The analysis was published this week in the center’s journal, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science, and it updates similar earlier analyses by Schuler.
“Civilian biodefense spending, not including the Bioshield bill, has reached a consistent level of about $5 billion from fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2006,” the article says.
“Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent substantial resources to prepare the nation against a bioterrorist attack,” the center said in a press release announcing the article’s publication. “All agencies involved in civilian biodefense received at least incremental increases.”
The fiscal 2006 total in the study does not include Defense Department budgeting for civilian biological defenses, as do previous years’ figures, because the Pentagon “was unable to furnish numbers for the requisite programs,” the study says.
Military biological defense spending for civilians in the previous two fiscal years averaged about $200 million. The analysis says, though, that those figures do not truly account for all Pentagon funding for civilian biological defense measures
“Some DOD research has direct civilian benefit, but because the majority of these funds are primarily military in application, these lines were excluded from calculation of total DOD expenditures,” it says.
Cuts and Boosts
As in previous years, the largest amount of money — $4.1 billion according to the article — was budgeted for the Health and Human Services Department, which funds the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The article describes a planned $130 million cut to CDC funding for state and local public health departments, bringing the total CDC budget request down to $797 million.
Another substantial cut is a $119 million reduction from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ budget for research facility construction, down to $30 million, and intended to “offset the increase in research funding,” the analysis says.
The Homeland Security Department’s $362 million budget is roughly the same as for fiscal 2005 — except for the $2.5 billion drop reflecting the advanced purchase for fiscal 2005 under the Bioshield law.
The Agriculture Department was budgeted $354 million, a 26 percent increase, for biological defense activities, the State Department $71.8 million, and the National Science Foundation $31.3 million.
The Environmental Protection Agency received an 87 percent increase to $185 million, primarily for decontamination capabilities, to protect water and food supplies, and for training, the study says.
Critics have said that despite substantial funding on biological defenses since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the country remains substantially unprepared for a mass-casualty biological attack.
Another article published in the journal, titled “Anthrax Countermeasures: Current Status and Future Needs,” concludes “the federal government does not yet have the range of medical countermeasures needed to protect its citizens from anthrax and other potential bioweapons.”
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration’s fiscal 2006 budget plans for civilian biological defense measures total at least $5.1 billion, according to a new nongovernmental analysis. The amount brings the total requested since 2001 to at least $27.7 billion (see GSN, Nov. 8, 2004).
The budget request includes increases for protecting national food and water supplies and a significant decrease for funding state and local public health departments, compared to requested spending last year.
The fiscal 2006 budgeting, an aggregate of spending across numerous agencies, reflects as much as a $2.5 billion drop from what was sought for fiscal 2005, but the decrease results mostly from the absence of one-time appropriation last year for drug and vaccine purchases through 2008 as part of the Project Bioshield law, according to the study by Ari Schuler, a government relations manager for Raydiance and a former research analyst at the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, located in Baltimore, Md.
The analysis was published this week in the center’s journal, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science, and it updates similar earlier analyses by Schuler.
“Civilian biodefense spending, not including the Bioshield bill, has reached a consistent level of about $5 billion from fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2006,” the article says.
“Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent substantial resources to prepare the nation against a bioterrorist attack,” the center said in a press release announcing the article’s publication. “All agencies involved in civilian biodefense received at least incremental increases.”
The fiscal 2006 total in the study does not include Defense Department budgeting for civilian biological defenses, as do previous years’ figures, because the Pentagon “was unable to furnish numbers for the requisite programs,” the study says.
Military biological defense spending for civilians in the previous two fiscal years averaged about $200 million. The analysis says, though, that those figures do not truly account for all Pentagon funding for civilian biological defense measures
“Some DOD research has direct civilian benefit, but because the majority of these funds are primarily military in application, these lines were excluded from calculation of total DOD expenditures,” it says.
Cuts and Boosts
As in previous years, the largest amount of money — $4.1 billion according to the article — was budgeted for the Health and Human Services Department, which funds the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The article describes a planned $130 million cut to CDC funding for state and local public health departments, bringing the total CDC budget request down to $797 million.
Another substantial cut is a $119 million reduction from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ budget for research facility construction, down to $30 million, and intended to “offset the increase in research funding,” the analysis says.
The Homeland Security Department’s $362 million budget is roughly the same as for fiscal 2005 — except for the $2.5 billion drop reflecting the advanced purchase for fiscal 2005 under the Bioshield law.
The Agriculture Department was budgeted $354 million, a 26 percent increase, for biological defense activities, the State Department $71.8 million, and the National Science Foundation $31.3 million.
The Environmental Protection Agency received an 87 percent increase to $185 million, primarily for decontamination capabilities, to protect water and food supplies, and for training, the study says.
Critics have said that despite substantial funding on biological defenses since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the country remains substantially unprepared for a mass-casualty biological attack.
Another article published in the journal, titled “Anthrax Countermeasures: Current Status and Future Needs,” concludes “the federal government does not yet have the range of medical countermeasures needed to protect its citizens from anthrax and other potential bioweapons.”
