On October 15th, Kelly Ayotte, former US Senator from NH, addressed the Rotary Club of Nashua regarding, the commission on preparedness to biological attack and defense. Senator Ayotte is a former Attorney General for NH. Her topic today is on a commission on preparedness to biological attack and defense. She earned her law degree from Villanova. As Senator, she championed the fight against the opioid epidemic.
Senator Ayotte was born and raised in Nashua where she now resides with her husband Joe and family. She did help with the confirmation of Supreme Court Judge Neil Gorsuch but did not participate with the recent process with Justice Brett Cavanaugh.
She commended Rotary’s efforts with eliminating Polio. It is especially important in the remaining active case areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She also enjoyed the rappelling experience via Mike Apfelberg’s – Over the Edge, fundraiser.
Senator Ayotte is currently chairing a bipartisan government and expert sourced commission from a think tank group studying the relationship between our health and national security. Contagious diseases must be managed aggressively and thoroughly. Sometimes it is resurgence of a previously controlled disease. Other times it is a rare or new disease emerging. The most serious widespread disease is the flu.
Ebola has a current outbreak in the Congo with neighboring countries of West Africa at risk. This is occurring with a civil war already raging in the Congo. The commission is also studying potential use or exposure to chemical or biologic weapons from hostile nations.
One such hostile country, North Korea, has a very high rate of Tuberculosis with different strains occurring regularly. One is very drug resistant. The spread of diseases from some of these affected countries comes from refugees fleeing the conflict and spreading the contagious disease.
The current funding necessary for prompt response is not currently held in an earmarked source and must be sought individually for each incident/exposure. We need a long term, immediately available source of funding to make a timely and integrated response to these threats.
The National Security office is considering these issues and developing policy to deal with biological threats. The needed high-level coordination is now better organized to improve the response capabilities. The commission is also doing a current review of existing plans and organization of all branches of government and private health sector programs.
The Ebola battle is now using a new vaccine developed by Merck that is in its final stages of testing and prior to regulatory approval. They are also currently working on a universal flu vaccine. It could save 60,000 people per year in the US alone. Worldwide it could prevent 2-6 million deaths.
Pathogen mapping is helping with early outbreak diagnosis. They are also working on a home diagnostic tool for outbreaks and geospatial mapping to help stem the outbreaks and prevent the spread of a disease. Pandemic exercises with the current White House administration help to demonstrate the problems with current response efforts to a widespread contagion. It needs to be a bipartisan government and private sector effort to reach all the groups that are affected.
Q and A:
- Looking at any and all re-emergences of old diseases. The anti-vaccine movements contribute to this uptick in ‘old’ diseases.
- The public needs to have more awareness of this commission. There is now a new web site talking about the activities of the commission.
- The development of a health emergency fund for resources in the event of outbreaks is needed.
- The commission does not have the resources or access to determine government existing security response.
- Kelly’s future is with her family and some local business boards.