Why Congress Should Act Now To Prevent Another Pandemic

Today, the 119th Congress begins and one of its top objectives will be to produce a long overdue budget. One of Congress’ highest priorities, a new defense appropriations bill, was passed late last year. But challenges to the wellbeing of Americans today go beyond military threats, as important as these are. Under current conditions, we also require a bold and comprehensive strategy, and significant new funding, to counter the real and urgent threat of a new pandemic.

Five years ago, we underestimated the dangers of COVID-19. Now, in light of potential dangers from the threat of H5N1—otherwise known as “bird flu”—we cannot afford to be complacent or make a similar mistake again.

Indeed, public health funding is an issue of the utmost importance to our national security. 

Public health is part of our national security 

During the Cold War, the U.S. developed military plans, and devoted significant resources for security in anticipation of a possible confrontation that many feared could engulf this country in a cataclysmic war. 

The U.S. today faces security challenges in various parts of the world that require steady advances in military capacity, intelligence skills, technologically advanced weapons, and highly innovative information technology. Budgetary resources must be devoted to addressing this. 

However, serious threats to the American people now come from other sources which can be devastatingly lethal. They can likewise be highly damaging to our economy and cost millions of jobs. This type of threat comes not from a military confrontation with other countries, but from small, unseen microbes.

The number of microbe-borne cases, such as the H5N1 virus, that we are now seeing in cattle, poultry, and now humans, should be a stark reminder of this danger.

There are already well-documented cases of significant amounts of non-human transmission of bird flu, H5N1. And the growing number of new cases of transmission of the H5N1 virus from birds and other animals to humans has raised new alarms. This has caused the growth of human infections incurred from animal sources so far.

However, there is no room for complacency. The prospect of large-scale human-to-human transmission is concerning enough that the CDC is already monitoring the threat carefully, and highly respected scientists, who have seen how quickly the COVID-19 virus spread have raised urgent concerns.

What Congress can do to address bird flu 

With the budgetary season upon us in Washington, America’s leaders in the White House, Congress, and various agencies have a timely opportunity to get ahead of this threat by taking bold measures to immediately and significantly boost funding for public and private research, as well as funding for our hospitals and other health related institutions, to enable them to adequately address potentially dangerous viruses.

The moment for urgent precautions and preparations is now. The spread of H5NI among animals, both in the wild and in domestic settings, and more cases of transmission to humans, is but one element of the concern. Another is that the viruses have begun to contain mutations that allow increased prospects for replication in human cells—increasing the potential for a widespread threat to humans. Such potential threats, in the worst of scenarios, can accelerate the rate at which diseases spread.

Before COVID-19, numerous highly respected medical experts wrote about a looming pandemic catastrophe. Several scientists issued thoughtful reports on the risk of a pandemic. The issue was that the U.S.—and much of the world defined—“national security” only as protection from a military threat from abroad. Few paid much attention to the dangerous health threat that we now know COVID-19 poses.

We paid a high price for this neglect including well over one million American lives and many more hospitalizations. Not to mention a seriously damaged economy and a huge number of job losses. These devastating impacts occurred on a scale that likely equal that of a massive war.

This should be a powerful signal that we need to rethink and broaden what “national security” in the 21st century entails. And we should devote the necessary resources and political support to addressing both our medical and military needs.

What we have learned from the COVID-19 pandemic

While we have learned a lot from our experience from COVID-19, we so far have failed to fully address the possibility of emerging lethal dangers from new viral transmissions. Many of the resources once committed to COVID-19 have been used, while the serious threat of H5N1 looms. 

One encouraging development has been that during the pandemic the medical and scientific communities—which, for some time had been given insufficient weight in the policy process and relatively little visibility or funding—played leading roles both in the fight against the pandemic and in forging the kinds of policies that our country needed to curb the impact of threatening viruses.

But as memories of the COVID-19 pandemic fade, so too has the government’s and public’s attention, as well as the resources needed to support advanced medical research and strategic anti-pandemic development efforts for the future.

The indispensable role of scientists and medical professionals, and world class research, mobilized in fighting COVID-19 should underscore their central role in addressing future medical threats. But tragically, some institutions that were supported during the COVID-19 pandemic are now receiving less support. This could lead to a more dangerous future for all Americans.

And bipartisan political cohesion to support pandemic prevention efforts has declined as well. Groups such as the CDC, the National Institute for Allergic Infections Diseases (NIAID), and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) need more funds. And such support must be complemented with more private sector funds as well.

We must ensure that significant and elevated levels of research are underway in full force today for immunizations and drugs to be available when we need them. And to be ready, these organizations must be adequately funded now.

We must work with other countries to combine our medical knowledge, resources, and brain power in this effort. As we know, borders are no barrier to pandemics. To the extent that American and foreign scientists can work together on preventative and therapeutic measures to address future pandemics worldwide, the more secure and healthier Americans will be.

Fortunately, progress is being made in this area through the Pandemic Research Alliance led by doctors and research scientists from several countries including the U.S., Australia, China, and Singapore, led by the eminent Columbia University scientist Dr. David Ho. This and similar efforts merit strong financial and governmental support as well. In an increasingly fragmented world, such an effort can be at least one major multinational source for protecting the wellbeing of humanity.

The scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic may be behind us. But it cannot be forgotten. It must trigger a major, sustained, and urgent effort, especially in the current budgetary process, to dedicate larger sums for medical research. Both public and private efforts can help us to avoid the devastating effects of another potential pandemic. As the coming debate over the federal budget heats up, our leaders must bear this in mind. While paying for this set of programs may be expensive, it will not be nearly as expensive as failure to do so in the event of a new pandemic.

There is a high probability that we will suffer serious consequences in the future unless our leaders in the public and private sector work together and take bold measures now to prevent the next pandemic. As Congress reconvenes, pandemic prevention must be a top priority for bipartisan leadership.