[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 124 (Thursday, September 29, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10689-S10693]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AVIAN FLU
Mr. BAYH. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking our colleague,
Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts. He is busy and has a lot on his
agenda. He has graciously agreed to let me speak before giving his
remarks. I thank him for his courtesy.
I also commend Senator Harkin, our colleague from Iowa, and Minority
Leader Harry Reid for putting this pressing issue squarely on the
national agenda. The issue of avian flu is one of the critically
important issues of our time. Second only to the potential for the
existence of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of suicidal
terrorists, this issue has the potential to be catastrophic to the
national security interests of this country.
I cannot imagine a more timely issue or one more appropriate to be
brought up on this legislation than something that will protect the
American people who are currently dreadfully exposed to the possibility
of a global pandemic. We need a new sense of urgency in addressing this
issue.
People have died because of avian influenza: 115 people have
contracted it in Asia; 59 of those people have died. Leading experts
say it is only a matter of time before this deadly disease becomes more
efficient in moving from person to person. We should not await that
dreadful day, but act proactively to protect the national security
interests and the health interests of the people of the United States
of America.
Previous influenza epidemics have been catastrophic, killing not
hundreds of thousands, but millions of human beings. We cannot afford
to wait for that kind of event to occur.
We are currently woefully unprepared. The estimates are that we have
in our stockpiles only enough vaccine to cover about 1 percent of the
American people. There are about 2.3 million doses of Tamiflu and 2
million doses of experimental pandemic flu vaccine in our stockpile.
And another antiviral may have been compromised by the Chinese use on
their poultry population, thereby imperiling its efficacy. We are way
behind the curve in preparing for a potential outbreak or pandemic of
this severity and potential magnitude. Other developed nations are way
ahead of us in terms of compiling their stockpiles and preparing their
public health agencies for a rapid response to this grave health
threat.
The final point I wish to make is I think more than anything else,
the lesson of Hurricane Katrina has taught us this: When it is a matter
of life and death for the American people, we better prepare for the
worst, even as we hope for the best because then one of two things will
happen: If the worst occurs, you are prepared to protect the life, the
security, and the safety of those who place their confidence in us.
That is the very least they should expect from their Government. And if
the worst did not happen, then we will be pleasantly surprised.
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When it comes to dealing with avian influenza, let us not have a
repeat of the mistakes of Hurricane Katrina. Let us be prepared so we
may protect our citizens or so we may be pleasantly surprised. That is
what Government is all about. That is why I am pleased to be a
cosponsor of the Harkin amendment.
I thank our leader Harry Reid and, once again, Senator Kennedy for a
lifetime of leadership on these issues and for his courtesy to me
today.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I first pay tribute to my friend,
colleague, and the chairman of our HELP Committee, Senator Enzi, for
his comments and his statements. We have worked very closely together
and will continue to do so on a variety of different health-related
issues. We are working together on the challenges that we are facing
from Hurricane Katrina, and we are also working on health and
education, as well as issues of pensions and higher education.
We come at this with somewhat different viewpoints. First, I commend
Secretary Leavitt for an excellent briefing and presentation yesterday.
All of our colleagues have had the opportunity to read in our national
newspapers the dangers associated with avian influenza, including the
potential threat that it presents and why it is different from the
seasonal flu that concerns families all over this country, particularly
to the elderly.
We have to be reminded that 36,000 people every year die from the
flu, even when we work to make sure they have access to the appropriate
flu vaccine. But that is the number that we lose, and that certainly is
a tragedy.
We heard an outstanding presentation by Secretary Leavitt, as well as
an outstanding presentation by Dr. Julie Gerberding, who is the head of
the CDC and who has been enormously perceptive in terms of looking at
the avian flu that we are facing. We also heard from General Michael
Hayden, Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and others. The one
thing that came out of that meeting, that I think all of us were
impressed by, is the sense of immediacy. I think that is what Senator
Harkin is reacting to and responding to, the real potential danger
which would be devastating to potentially tens of millions of
Americans.
Perhaps we are being overly sensitive to this issue by adding this
amendment to the Defense appropriations bill because of the recent
tragedy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Obviously Katrina has been
particularly devastating, and Rita was certainly enormously harmful as
well.
There were several of us in that briefing who left saying if we are
going to make a mistake, it will be on the side of taking too much
action.
The Secretary outlined a very vigorous program that he himself is
involved in, working with the other agencies of Government and working
with other members of the Cabinet. Avian flu is going to involve just
about every kind of public policy issue, including transportation,
health, commerce, and so many others. He gave us the assurance that he
is going to have his own plan that will be released in the next few
weeks.
As Senator Harkin and others have pointed out, this particular
legislation outlines the areas where funding should be directed, and
also gives great flexibility to the administration in terms of its
expenditures. Senator Harkin says that the funds will be available
until spent. By passing this amendment today, we will not get caught at
a time when either the Senate or the House is not in session. We now
have an opportunity to make the necessary resources available, as well
as direct the ways that it ought to be expended.
During the presentation, the Secretary pointed out that their goal
was to buy enough antiviral treatment to cover 80 million people, which
is about one-quarter of the Nation's population. That was going to be
at the cost of $20 a course of treatment. It was brought up by our
colleagues that if this pandemic strikes the United States, there is
not going to be a family that is not going to want to make sure that
they have protections for their children and for themselves, for their
spouses, for their parents, and for their grandparents.
Every family is going to want to make sure they are able to afford
and obtain that antiviral treatment. If one is affected by avian
influenza and the antiviral treatment is taken immediately, the risk of
death is diminished in a dramatic way. I think it is going to be very
difficult to accept that this Nation will be satisfied with just one
out of four Americans having access to this treatment. Even more so,
when we already know the potential dangers of a pandemic by what we
have seen in the places affected and impacted by avian flu.
This legislation will only cover 50 percent of the population. It
does not cover three out of four Americans. And, it does not cover the
whole population. It costs $1.6 billion just to cover a quarter. We
doubled that roughly to $3.2 billion, which puts us into the range
suggested by experts.
The point that was made very carefully by the Secretary is that we
are going to have to deal with surge capacity, and that our hospitals
do not have this capability at the present time. That is going to be
very important.
Previously, we have provided help and assistance to local communities
and to State agencies to help them meet their surge capacity needs.
Beyond that, it is going to be enormously important that we invest
funds, as this legislation does, in surveillance--not only detection in
this country but detection in foreign countries. That is the best way
that we are going to be able to deal with this avian flu, to get the
earliest possible detection.
As a result of that briefing yesterday, I do not think any of us
would feel that we have a full alert system working around the world.
We had reports from various countries. A number of the countries, large
countries as well as small, have effectively buried this health
challenge and denied that they ever had it. We have to be very
proactive if we are going to protect Americans. We have to be able to
develop a system internationally where we can identify early warning
signs of a pandemic. That kind of surveillance, is included in this
legislation.
We have to make sure we have the capability in our States to be able
to detect this when it first affects a community. We have to set up a
system for our health clinics and for our hospitals to make sure that
the first indications of this kind of health challenge are going to be
addressed. We need the detection and then we need the containment. To
contain flu, we need to build our public health infrastructure in the
local community. We are very far away from that kind of capability.
A year ago, I think the Department submitted a public report about
how many States actually had moved ahead in terms of developing their
plans. About half of the states have yet to develop pandemic
preparedness plans, and those with plans have yet to be evaluated for
quality and feasibility.
When I entered the Chamber, I was listening to my friend, Senator
Enzi, talk about the BioShield Program which we put in place in
preparation for the kind of challenge that we might face from
bioterrorists. It focused on different bioterrorism agents that might
pose a direct health threat, and allows the Secretary to put in place a
system to respond quickly and effectively to those kinds of challenges.
Our colleague, Senator Burr from North Carolina, has held an
extraordinary number of hearings in these areas. I know he has been
preparing legislation to deal with a number of these items that I am
mentioning today. He has done a magnificent job in the development of
those hearings. But that still does not mean that with the kind of
challenge avian flu presents, which can be so devastating, that we
should not be alert and ready to go.
We can point out that our whole system of vaccines is woefully
lagging in the United States for a variety of different reasons. Today,
we do not have the direct capability and capacity to develop the kind
of avian flu countermeasures we need, including vaccines or producing
enough antiviral medication. The best estimate is even if we were to
give all the contracts out today, it would be well into the year 2007
before we were able to provide important coverage for all Americans. So
we are talking years into the future before we can even provide
Tamiflu, something that we know can make a difference.
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It does seem to me that we do not have a day to waste. This is
something that is very dangerous.
Finally, one could ask, Is it appropriate to be on a Defense
appropriations bill? Well, if we were talking about something like
nuclear weapons, I would say, yes, because we are concerned about the
dangers of nuclear proliferation. I, quite frankly, believe avian flu
presents a much greater threat, because it is imminent, highly lethal,
and we have few countermeasures.
I do not see a great difference myself--certainly it will not be much
of a difference to the families who are affected, whether it is
terrorism or the fact that this kind of influenza has spread to this
country and their family is infected with a deadly virus. That is why I
believe that action is necessary.
Very quickly, we have seen reductions in two very important agencies.
One is HRSA, which provides grants to help hospitals in the area of
preparedness so that they can develop a response plan, get clearance
with the State and HHS. Hospitals have begun working on plans, but they
are woefully far behind, and this program was cut again this year.
Then we have the Centers for Disease Control that will be certainly a
lead agency--I would hope that it would be a lead agency--and we know
that their public health expenditures have been reduced. I think this
is tragic myself. It is a jewel of an organization in terms of American
public health, and it has done extraordinarily well. It is extremely
well led at the present time, and it does not seem appropriate to me
that we ought to be reducing the CDC budget, when the agency has such
great responsibility in this area at this time.
Yesterday, when I asked Secretary Leavitt whether we could actually
use the BioShield money--I think we have close to $6 billion in that--
he said that it was set up and structured so that the funds are not
applicable to this particular kind of challenge.
I think the amounts we are talking about are appropriate, given the
essential nature of the potential disaster. The new flu strain poses a
deadly threat. One of the important points made by Secretary Leavitt
yesterday is that even this very deadly strain they are most concerned
about can mutate further. It is always somewhat difficult to develop
the vaccines and antivirals because these strains can alter and change,
making the vaccines no longer effective. But having said that, they
believe the treatments they have developed can have an important impact
on saving the lives of those infected with avian flu. In the areas
already affected with avian flu, we see a death rate of 44 percent in
Vietnam, 71 percent in Thailand, almost 100 percent in Cambodia--and an
average of 50 percent for all of Asia.
The great challenge, as we heard yesterday, occurs when it moves from
the birds into human beings. That is a big leap. I will come back and
make a longer talk about how that comes about and how rare that process
is, but that has happened.
Then, the next leap is whether it is easily spread from person to
person. For example, if one member of the family--if a child has it, is
it easily communicable to the child's siblings? There is only one
recorded instance, as we were told yesterday, where that has taken
place. But it has taken place. That is a very important warning sign
because it suggests that this influenza has the potential to become a
pandemic and be absolutely devastating.
We were reminded yesterday, during the briefing, there are usually
three pandemics every 100 years. They talked about what happened in the
immediate postwar period of 1918, when soldiers had been at the front
and they contracted dangerous influenza. In the US, over 500,000 people
died from that pandemic flu, and another 50 million worldwide died.
We do not want to be unduly alarmist, but we have to be serious about
it. This meeting we had was in S-407. It was going to be top secret,
evidently. I said to the Secretary, now that we have heard all this
news, it seems to me the public ought to know about it, they ought to
understand it, and it ought to be explained by the top health officials
in the country so we get accurate information. We have a number of
those--Secretary Leavitt, Dr. Tony Fauci, Dr. Julie Gerberding--who are
enormously competent, thoughtful scientists, researchers, who have a
lifetime of commitment trying to understand these dangers. The more
Americans listen to them and read the information on this and the
authentic science, the better off they are going to be.
But I believe this Harkin amendment is saying we have been put on
notice. If there is an avian flu outbreak, they will say, Didn't you go
to the briefing upstairs in 407 where they laid this out to you? You
are on the HELP committee. You know the dangers. You worked with
Senator Frist when we passed BioShield. Senator Burr, when he was in
the House, was a principal sponsor--even before 9/11. The elements of
preparedness, detection, and containment that are in this amendment
were included in BioShield as well. These are thoughtful ideas. There
is strong support for them in the HELP Committee. Today, we have an
opportunity to take action on the floor. The administration is going to
be responsible for that when this amendment is passed.
I join with my colleague and friend, Senator Enzi, and with Senator
Burr, our other colleague who has provided great leadership in the
committee, to get legislation on preparedness out as early as possible.
My chairman, Senator Enzi, likes to do it the old-fashioned way. He
likes to listen to witnesses make the presentations, mark up the bill
and get it to the floor, and he does it with extraordinary success. I
would say, on this particular occasion, we ought to get the resources
out there now.
Senator Harkin has outlined the general areas which I think are
justifiable, where the resources should be spent. I would also like to
see the Secretary bring together all the major drug companies, which I
think he intends to do, and go over this and get a plan from them about
how we can maximize the safety and security for all Americans. This is
what this amendment is all about.
I thank my colleague from Wyoming for his comments and statements
about avian flu. I look forward to working with him on this issue. Our
only real difference is whether we move ahead now, trying to at least
provide those essential resources for the Secretary, the President, and
the administration, to act now and prepare us for the threat of avian
flu or wait until it's too late.
We can work with our colleagues within our committee to try to
develop additional legislation to further improve our preparedness and
develop effective treatments for avian flu. That is certainly a
responsibility that we have. I welcome the opportunity to do that with
my friend from Wyoming and also the Senator from North Carolina.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reflect for a moment on what America went
through with Hurricane Katrina, reflect on what it has meant to our
country and what it has meant to our Government. That was the greatest
natural disaster of modern time. Americans were shaken to the core
watching television night after night to see victims of Hurricane
Katrina and what they were living through. Many of those scenes we
witnessed did not look like America. It just doesn't seem like our
great Nation where people would be in such a helpless and almost
hopeless state--to find people struggling just to survive the
floodwaters and the hurricane damage, to see Americans begging for
water and food, to see what appeared to be refugees--in fact,
evacuees--trying to bring their children across interstate bridges to
dry land, to see people thrown in many different directions, families
divided and still not united. To see all of that occur day in and day
out 24-7 was a startling scene. It was an indication to all of us that
we needed to take a step back and
[[Page S10692]]
take a look at America from a different angle.
Perhaps too many of us had been lulled into the belief that this sort
of thing could never happen, that leaders in America would never let us
reach this terrible point, whether it is a natural disaster or a
terrorist disaster, that someone somewhere in Washington or in a State
capital or in a city hall had not made preparations and plans to deal
with it. It is that concern that has led so many people to call for an
honest appraisal of what happened with Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane
Rita and what we need to do in America to be better and stronger and
better prepared.
I don't think the people of this country expect the Senate or their
Government to look at the world through the rearview mirror. We can't
spend our time looking back and reliving every moment and pointing a
finger of blame here and there or some place for some satisfaction,
personal or political. But it is critically important that we review
that scenario, that we don't repeat the same mistake, so that the next
time, we are better prepared. That is what we need.
That is why we need an independent, nonpartisan commission--people
without allegiance to the President or to the Democratic Party or to
the Republican Party but people who are truly Americans first who will
come together in a commission and ask those questions so that we can be
better prepared for our future. Unfortunately, there has been
resistance to this idea, but that is nothing new.
After 9/11, many of us called for the creation of a commission to
find out why our intelligence sources failed so miserably and what we
could have done to avoid that terrible disaster of 9/11. At that time,
the White House opposed the creation of the 9/11 Commission, and many
members of the President's party also said it is premature, we don't
need it. But good sense prevailed. More than that, the 9/11 survivors'
families prevailed--those widows and widowers, those children and
spouses who came forward and demanded the creation of this independent
Commission. They were the political force. They were an irresistible
force. They created this Commission with two extremely talented
individuals: Governor Kean of New Jersey, a Republican, and Congressman
Lee Hamilton of Indiana, a Democrat. They came together with others of
like mind and did a great national service.
The 9/11 Commission not only analyzed what went wrong, which you
almost have to start with, but then they said: Here is how we could do
better. They produced a proposal for reforming the intelligence
agencies of America--there are many of them--so that they would be
better coordinated, share information, and be there to protect America.
The first line of defense against any terrorism is not our military.
The first line of defense is intelligence. We need to see the danger
coming before it strikes and stop it. That is what good intelligence
can bring you.
With their suggestions, on a bipartisan basis with the support the 9/
11 families, we moved forward. Credit should go where it is due. In the
Senate, Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Senator Joe Lieberman,
Democrat of Connecticut, took the proposals of the 9/11 Commission,
working with the Members of the House of Representatives, and crafted a
piece of legislation which I was honored to be part of, and we worked
literally for months to get that done. We gave up a valuable commodity
around here: we gave up our time with our families. We came back during
the August recess and held hearings. We pushed the bill, and it was
signed by the President.
Good things happened. Why? Because we had the right leaders in place.
These Commission leaders were in place. They pointed to weaknesses, and
they told us how we could overcome. They called for reform. They stayed
with the agenda until it was accomplished. It was a model for all of us
and one we should look to when it comes to Hurricane Katrina and
Hurricane Rita. That is why I believe an independent, nonpartisan
commission is so necessary.
The House of Representatives had a hearing earlier this week. They
brought in Michael Brown. He pointed a finger of blame in every
direction, including his own administration. When it was all said and
done, people said: Well, at least he was brought before this committee
and the members that did appear and was held accountable. That is a
good thing. It is an important thing. But it isn't going to bring us to
the point we ought to be in this country. We want to find out what went
wrong. Why didn't we think ahead if we had been warned so many times
about the dangers in New Orleans? Why didn't we plan ahead when it came
to positioning forces, positioning food and supplies? Why didn't we
have a communications network that could survive a natural disaster?
Why didn't we have better cooperation at all levels of government?
Where do we need to change the law so that at some given moment, it is
clear who is in charge? What could we have done to save those lives we
lost in those disasters? What should we do now to reunite these
families and put their lives back in order? These are all valid points.
The reason I have reflected on these circumstances, 9/11 and the
hurricanes, is because the amendment that is pending right now on this
Department of Defense appropriations bill gives this Senate an
opportunity to step forward right now at an early moment to avert the
next tragedy. Let me tell you what I mean. We need a wake-up call in
America. Most public health officials here and around the world agree
that an outbreak of a new pandemic is virtually inevitable. I use the
words ``virtually inevitable'' with some care. Those are the words of
Dr. Gerberding, who is the head of the Centers for Disease Control.
You have to be a student of history to remember the great flu
pandemic of 1918 that claimed so many innocent lives in America. What
Dr. Gerberding and other health officials are telling us is that unless
we aggressively monitor and immediately contain this avian flu, it is
likely to be a global pandemic.
The difference, of course, is the world of 2005 is so much different
from the world of 1918. In the world of 2005, an infected person is 12
hours away from your doorstep. That is about as long as it takes to fly
from one part of the world to another.
We have to prepare and we have to start now, no excuses. That is why
the Harkin amendment, which I am happy to cosponsor, is so important.
People say: Why would you bring up an amendment about a national
pandemic of avian flu on a Department of Defense appropriations? Don't
you have health appropriations or other things? It is true. And Senator
Harkin and I happen to be on the subcommittee that would more naturally
be the place to bring up this amendment. However, he is doing it
because we have relatively few opportunities in this Senate to act. We
believe, in supporting this amendment, we need to act, and to act now.
I am told what makes the avian flu so dangerous is that humans have
no natural immunity to this strain of flu. We remember the flu shots
and all the warnings we have received over the years. For the most
part, those flu shots are increasing our already natural resistance to
flu. When it comes to the new strain of avian flu, we have no
resistance. We have no immunity. It is not a question of children and
sick people and the elderly being vulnerable, we are all vulnerable.
That is what happened in 1918. The healthiest looking people on the
street could be dead in 24 hours. That was the nature of that flu and
could be the nature of this flu challenge.
The Centers for Disease Control has suggested that an avian flu
outbreak in the United States could claim the lives of 200,000 people--
a conservative estimate. Compare that to 36,000 lives lost each flu
season to typical, normal flu. It is not just that the CDC that is
anticipating a flu pandemic. Yesterday, Senator Frist asked the
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mr. Leavitt, to ensure that
there are U.S. antiviral drugs in the national stockpile to provide
treatment for 50 percent of the American population in the event of an
outbreak. I fully support Senator Frist's recommendation. As most
everyone knows, he is a medical doctor, in addition to being the
majority leader of the Senate.
I am pleased to join in offering this amendment which provides the
Department of Health and Human Services with the money it needs to
purchase those drugs. That recommendation alone will require about $3
billion.
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What is the antiviral drug? The one most commonly referred to is
called Tamiflu. If a person has flu-like symptoms and calls the doctor
as soon as they feel them coming on, that doctor might prescribe
Tamiflu, which if taken quickly, could lessen the severity of the
influenza. The notion is, we should be prepared as a nation with this
antiviral Tamiflu in the stockpile, or something like it, so that if we
do see this flu coming toward America, we are prepared to provide some
treatment for people as they start to exhibit symptoms.
This amendment that Senator Harkin has offered, with my support and
others, provides funding to the Department of Health and Human Services
so it can enter into a contract to buy those drugs now. Until the
Department of Health and Human Services has that money on hand, all of
our conversations are just theoretical.
Remember last year when we talked about running out of flu vaccine,
and the flu had already hit? It was a little late. That is what we are
trying to avoid. Step in early for the virtually inevitable pandemic
and have a stockpile of medicine available for America. Be prepared.
That is what this amendment has as its watchword.
The Department of Health and Human Services cannot add antiviral
drugs to the stockpile until it has the money to purchase them. This
amendment provides the money to the Department of Health and Human
Services so they can purchase drugs to treat up to 50 percent of the
U.S. population.
I asked yesterday in one of the briefings, why did you pick a number
like 40 or 50 percent? The public health experts, such as Dr. Fauci and
others, say that is the percentage of the population we think may be
exposed. Let's not revisit the scenario of last year's flu season when
there was not enough medicine and we had to make decisions about
rationing the medicine. There came a time when we said there is not
enough flu vaccine. I said, well, I feel pretty healthy, I will get to
the end of the line. And when it was all over we ended up with more
than we needed. It was not good management of flu vaccine in our
country.
Baruch Fischoff of Carnegie Mellon University, an expert on the
public perception of risk, says telling people they cannot get flu
treatment ``isn't the American way.'' ``That is rationed health care.
We just do not accept that.''
We have to prepare for developing something else which is going to
take a lot of energy, a lot of resource and ingenuity. We have to
prepare and develop a vaccine to deal with this flu that prevents the
infection from ever setting in. Right now, that vaccine does not exist.
Even if it did, we do not have the manufacturing capacity in the United
States to produce vaccines at the rate we need them.
Senator Harkin's amendment, now pending, doubles our commitment to
research and development, the manufacture of, even the purchase of an
effective avian flu vaccine.
Remember last year when one of two flu vaccine manufacturers for a
typical flu season had to close its European facility? The United
States could not turn to any domestic supplier to make up for the loss
of those doses of vaccine because we did not have that capacity.
We talk a lot about the U.S. dependence on foreign suppliers for oil.
We shouldn't have to depend on other countries for the medicines we
need during a global health crisis.
Another lesson from last year's flu vaccine shortage, we have to have
a plan. In the face of the vaccine shortage, prices for a dose of flu
vaccine in Kansas at one point went as high as $600. In Colorado, 600
doses of flu vaccine were stolen from a doctor's office.
Despite these images of chaos, State and local health officials
worked long and hard to maintain calm and also figure out how many
doses there were, where they were, and how to get them to the people
who needed them the most.
If we intend to rely on good work, long hours, and a public health
workforce that does not get sick, we may be in trouble. This amendment
restores cuts to State and local public health agencies so they will
have the money to be prepared. It includes enough money for communities
to figure out where we will take care of people who are sick when the
hospitals and clinics reach capacity, which could happen.
Again, the people who turned New Orleans airport into a hospital
showed bravery and grace under pressure. But we can do better than
airport lounges and convention centers as makeshift clinics in
America--only if we think ahead; only if we are prepared. Let's give
our State and local agencies the resources and timeline to prepare for
a pandemic flu outbreak.
This time, we are virtually certain it is going to hit. This time, no
excuses. We should be prepared. We need to begin now to prepare, and do
it aggressively. The best possible outcome would be an early detection
of the outbreak, quick containment and treatment, and then development
of a vaccine to prevent its spread. This amendment doubles the
investment of the Centers for Disease Control in global disease
detection in an effort to find, stop, and prevent the spread of the
avian flu as soon as it mutates into a strain that can move
efficiently, in the words of the medical community, ``from person to
person.''
I heard one of the public health leaders the other day say it might
not be this winter, it might be next winter, but it is going to happen.
If we know that, and we do not act to prepare for what President Bush
says could become the first pandemic of the 21st century, we are
failing in leadership. We will have failed as much as any official who
did not respond to the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina.
The funding we propose to add to this bill to prepare for a virtually
inevitable, probably global public health crisis is less than we spend
on the war in Iraq in 1 month. That is what it will take to get America
ready so this avian flu does not claim so many lives.
This investment will, in fact, save lives. Hundreds of thousands of
American lives could be spared, by the most conservative estimates. It
could be as many as 1.7 million American lives that are at risk in this
pandemic, according to an adviser to the Department of Homeland
Security. Understand, this amendment does not create any new programs
or start any new initiatives. It simply accelerates the work of the CDC
in preparing for the outbreak of this deadly flu. The preparation will
take time. There is not much we can do about that. Avian flu could
begin to spread at any time.
Currently, they have reported 115 cases of avian flu around the
world. Where humans were affected by it, over half of them have died.
There isn't anything we can do about the current situation, but there
is something we can do about the threat to America. What we can do is
step up to this challenge, purchase the antiviral drugs we need now,
invest in domestic capabilities for vaccine protection for America, and
prepare for emergency care during a flu pandemic.
We talk a lot about national security in the Department of Defense
bill, but a strong America begins at home. We found that out. We found
it out on the gulf coast. We were not prepared. We did not do our job.
No one stood up soon enough and early enough and said it is time to
hold people accountable. It is time to think ahead, think beyond the
moment, think to what we need.
What if I am wrong? What if this flu pandemic does not occur? What if
this money is invested in things that, frankly, do not become
necessary? That could happen. And I pray that it does. If we could
spare Americans and people around the world the suffering that could be
associated with that pandemic, I wish that happily. I would be glad to
stand and say, well, perhaps we did too much too soon. But I would much
rather stand here and apologize for doing too much too soon than to
stand here and make excuses for not doing enough when we had to.
The Harkin amendment is an important amendment for the strength of
America, for the health of America, and for the protection of America.
I look forward to supporting it. It would be wonderful if we had a
strong bipartisan rollcall to say that we will start with this national
challenge, coming together in a bipartisan fashion, both the
administration and Congress dedicated to making certain that we learned
a lesson from Hurricane Katrina.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
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