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May 23, 2018 at 08:31 PM
The U.S. program for preventing and fighting a severe influenza outbreak is low on funding and in terrible shape, according to Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
Baldwin, D-Wis., today asked members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to help her provide $632 million in funding per year for influenza vaccination efforts at the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
Flu is of interest to life insurers, health insurers, disability insurers and agents because it continues to pose the threat of creating catastrophic health, disability and mortality risk.
Congress created BARDA in 2006 in an effort to set up a flexible, permanent program with the ability to respond to dangerous health problems, such Ebola outbreaks and flu pandemics. The current funding appropriation for BARDA expires in September.
Since 2006, funding for BARDA flu-fighting efforts has been poor, Baldwin said today at a Senate HELP hearing on S. 2852, the “Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act of 2018″ (PAHPA) bill, which would renew BARDA funding.
“Our flu stockpile is full of expired vaccine components,” Baldwin said.
The vaccine components BARDA does have fail to match the strains now circulating, Baldwin said.
(Related: Ebola Claims Two More Lives in Congo as Vaccinations Under Way)
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who helped lead the effort to create BARDA, and helped lead the effort to reauthorize support for the program in 2013, said he agrees with Baldwin that flu fighting efforts needs more support, but he said he wants to avoid imposingrestrictions on how BARDA uses its funding.
“We’ve never picked winners and losers,” Burr said.
