Frank Gottron
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 12
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Many potential chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) terrorism agents lack available medical countermeasures. In 2003, President Bush proposed Project BioShield to address this need. This law has three main provisions: (1) relaxing regulatory requirements for some CBRN terrorism-related spending, including hiring and awarding research grants; (2) guaranteeing a federal government market for new CBRN medical countermeasures; and (3) permitting emergency use of unapproved countermeasures. The 111th Congress faces several challenging policy issues. Primary among them is assessing whether Project BioShield is successfully encouraging medical countermeasure development. A second issue is whether to allow additional diversions of the Project BioShield advance appropriation, a key element of the government's market guarantee, to support other activities. A third is whether to broaden Project BioShield's mandate beyond CBRN countermeasures in the face of other threats, such as pandemic influenza.