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major bioterrorism attack would likely overwhelm government scientists
assigned to analyze biological weapons.
There
is worldwide a short of experts that it would be overwhelmed by
a biological terror attack, and the problem will only get worse
as scores of aging government specialists retire within the next
five years, according to a study to be released Tuesday.
 A
new study, by the non-partisan Partnership for Public Service, which
lobbies to attract qualified people to federal service, charges
that the federal government does not have enough specialists to
adequately examine biological weapons.
“We have too few experts; they cannot keep pace with preparatory
requirements,” it says.
LESSONS OF THE ANTHRAX LETTERS
The report draws alarming conclusions from the federal government’s
response to the series of anthrax-laced letters that were mailed
to government and news media offices in the aftermath of the Sept.
11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
The anthrax attacks were a “small scale challenge,” the
report says, but they still severely “overburdened” federal
resources, and five people died. “A large scale attack would
overwhelm them,” it warns.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committed
as much as a quarter of its entire workforce to the attacks, according
to the report, which quotes Dr. Julie Gerberding, the CDC’s
director, as saying the agency would have been stretched “beyond
capacity” had they been any more widespread.
“Agency employees were working around the clock, sometimes
sleeping on mattresses placed in laboratories, to complete the work
needed to respond to both the real cases, as well as the thousands
of hoaxes,” the report says.
As a result, “laboratories operating at capacity could not
address any other public health issue,” it says. Moreover,
the agency had no one available to communicate effectively with
local officials and doctors about effective treatments.
Even now, almost two years later, the CDC “has not conducted
comprehensive follow-ups or physical examinations” of victims
who survived exposure to the anthrax-laced letters, the report says.
The federal response to the anthrax attacks “signaled our vulnerability
to larger-scale, multiple or phased bioterrorist attacks,”
the report warns. “... The government lost several rounds in
[the] battle for confidence during the anthrax threat.”
 Defending
the homefront
Experts discuss the threat of biological and chemical warfare and
what needs to be done to prevent it.
The threat of bioterrorism
NBC’s Robert Bazell reports on the threat of biological terror
in the U.S.-------------------------
‘HIRING PROCESS ... IS BROKEN’
At the heart of the problem is the government hiring and promotion
process, which is too inflexible to attract and keep the best talent,
according to the report, which examined the CDC, the National Institute
of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and three other federal agencies.
Even after a series of high-profile terrorist drills, the most recent
last month in Chicago and Seattle, the government has no reliable
count of how many experts it has on hand now and has no way to assess
how many it would need in the event of an attack, the study found.
Many scientists are bolting the government for better-paying jobs
at universities and in the private sector, it says. But of more
immediate concern is the fact that many others are bumping up on
retirement age, a double whammy that has left government health
agencies in a “workforce crisis.”
“We’re looking at, across the board, nearly half of the
biodefense workforce ... being eligible to retire in the next five
years,” Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public
Service, said in an interview with NBC News.
The report recites a list of shortcomings in federal science recruiting,
among them:
Pay regulations based on longevity, not merit, which drive the most
talented scientists to the private sector. In biodefense-related
jobs at the Agriculture Department, for example, starting salaries
for highly recruited physicians can run 45 percent lower than for
similar jobs in the business world.
Laws and regulations that limit government biodefense hiring to
U.S. citizens. As many as 25 percent of graduates of U.S. medical
schools are foreign nationals, an enormous talent pool that the
government cannot tap.
A work environment that is “not supportive of high performers
and innovators.” The study said that “in every interview
we completed with members of the federal biodefense workforce”
— particularly those on the “front lines” —
employees complained that the federal system was “antithetical
to the foundation of merit found in other sectors.”
“The federal government has a hiring process which is, simply
put, broken,” Stier said. “It takes too long. It’s
too cumbersome, and it’s non-transparent, and the end result
is that the federal government is unable to compete for the talent
it needs to both prepare for and respond to the bioterrorist threat.”
‘EVERYTHING HUMANLY POSSIBLE’
In an interview with NBC News, Jerome Hauer, the assistant secretary
of health and human services for public health emergency preparedness,
acknowledged that the government needed more scientists but insisted
that “significant gains have been made in preparing this country
for dealing with bioterrorism.”
“We recognized early on that there was a great need to enhance
the number of specialists, including researchers, epidemiologists
and inspectors,” Hauer said. “We are doing everything
humanly possible to try and continue to recruit top-quality scientists.
... We’ve put over $9 billion out to help rebuild this infrastructure,
not just for bioterrorism but for any public health emergency.”
But the Partnership for Public Service study faults federal officials
for having no “government-wide planning effort that develops
a coordinated recruitment plan.”
“Although federal biodefense staffing levels have increased
in recent years, the workforce may not include the right employees
— in number or in skills — needed to respond to a bioterrorist
attack,” it warns.
Stier praised the scientists the government does have, calling them
“very qualified, very capable people that would respond in
an admirable fashion.”
But “they need help,” he said. “They need more resources,
and they need preparation for the future in order for us to be able
to be safe as a nation.”
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