Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Homeland Security Department still must contend with significant hurdles in establishing a federal system for tracking potential biological health dangers to people and animals, a working group of experts concluded in assertions reported on Tuesday by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (see GSN, Nov. 2, 2011).

The National Biosurveillance Integration System still faces hindrances stemming from inaccurate assessments of significant challenges, an absence of mandated powers, and an unwillingness to coordinate with other government entities that produce related information, participants in a September event concluded.

"The collaboration, the sharing, and the integration are difficult in the context of multiple agencies with multiple missions and a rich variety of data sets, including areas where the data sets are nonexistent. ... If it were easy, it would be done," former U.S. Health and Human Services Deputy Assistant Secretary William Raub said.

Homeland Security Department in 2004 created the program to be the country's "first system capable of providing comprehensive and integrated biosurveillance and situational awareness," according to an event review produced by the Institute of Medicine.

The department three years later established the National Biosurveillance Integration Center to "identify, integrate, and analyze data to detect biothreats and disseminate alerts" (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy release, Feb. 14).