NYC, U.S. Officials Disagree on Biosensors

New York City is facing resistance from the federal government as it seeks to boost deployment of latest-generation sensors intended to detect deadly biological agents, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Feb. 8, 2007).

The Bush administration, in its final year in office, is not pushing biosecurity efforts with the same intensity seen in previous years, city officials say.

“We’d like to see a little bit more focus in that area. … I think the federal government could do a better job,” said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

More than $400 million has been spent to date on the Biowatch program, which in 2003 distributed to more than 30 cities air samplers that could detect anthrax, smallpox or other potential bioterrorism agents.

Critics say the detection process is too slow.  Filters are collected daily from the devices, after which it could take up to 30 hours for a laboratory to identify dangerous microbes.  The system, budgeted at $85 million annually, is also plagued by false readings, quality-control questions and size limitations.

Officials in New York want to use the new Autonomous Pathogen Detection System, developed with federal backing by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.  The system was activated in December and can conduct hourly sampling for up to a week, identify as many as 100 species, collect live specimens and report results to authorities.

Faster detection would allow the city to more quickly determine when exposure occurred, treat victims, pursue those behind the incident, and reduce the risk of panic and organizational problems as countermeasures are given to millions of people.

However, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Jeffrey Runge said that additional research and improvements must precede widespread deployment of the detectors, each of which costs $100,000.

He denied that the federal government has not paid adequate attention to New York.  Homeland Security funded 90 percent of the installation of the Biowatch system in the city and pays all of its operating costs, said Runge, the agency’s chief medical officer.

Homeland Security wants new sensors that are accurate, smaller and cheaper to operate than their predecessors, Runge said.  Two firms are being considered to produce a sensor that the federal agency hopes would improve upon the Livermore device.  The competition is scheduled to begin next year, so the Bush administration’s successor would make the decision regarding the scope of deployment.

“I don’t know what better job Washington can do than having a multiyear, multimillion-dollar research program in how to get better automated detection,” Runge said.

There are questions among some observers and lawmakers about the overall value of Biowatch, the Post reported.  The National Academy of Sciences last month received $2 million from Congress to conduct a “cost-benefit” analysis of the program.  The question is whether improved disease monitoring would work better than technology.

“Does it make sense to invest limited biodefense funds in more advanced Biowatch technology even as we cut funds public health personnel needed to analyze Biowatch data, as we are now doing?” Tara O’Toole, director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said in October (Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, Jan. 9).

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