REPORT OF THE BIPARTISAN COMMISSION ON BIODEFENSE 

April 17, 2024 When we issued the first edition of our National Blueprint for Biodefense eight years ago, we stated that the United States was not sufficiently prepared for impending biological threats. Then, as today, we acknowledged that while some biological events were inevitable, their devastating impacts were not. We know now that had our country expeditiously implemented the 33 recommendations we made in that report, COVID-19 would not have taken such a deadly toll on our citizens and economy. This failure to act resulted in loss of life, societal disruption, and loss of confidence in our government. Despite having made some progress, the Nation remains dangerously vulnerable to a biological event. As we all seek to turn the page on COVID-19, policymakers risk losing the progress made over the last three years. Our Nation can no longer wait for a biological event to occur and only then respond to it, expending enormous resources because we did not invest in biodefense. America must change its biodefense cadence from on-again/off-again to on all the time. Inevitably, there will be some subsequent pandemics and other biological events that will be worse than COVID-19, and similar responses will not suffice if we hope to save lives, preserve our economic strength, and buttress national security.

This Commission examines US national defense against biological attacks, emerging and reemerging infectious diseases, and accidental releases of biological agents. We continue to witness diseases exploiting gaps in national biodefense, and hasty attempts to shore up one vulnerability that only lead to exposing many others. This weakness is why we continue to scrutinize national prevention, deterrence, preparedness, detection and surveillance, response, attribution, recovery, and mitigation (efforts that comprise the spectrum of biodefense activities).