PREVENT Pandemics Act aims to improve public health preparedness, response

As new COVID-19 variants continue emerging, there’s a bipartisan effort to make sure we’re better prepared for the next major health crisis.

It’s called the PREVENT Pandemics Act, and it outlines new ways of improving public health responses at the federal level.

Senators say they spent the last year reviewing what didn’t work well as the federal government responded to the pandemic.

Now they have a lengthy piece of legislation that addresses problems ranging from medical supply chain issues for masks and vaccines to updating the FDA approval process for COVID-19 tests.

“No one wants to go through this again — our families don’t, our communities don’t, our economy doesn’t,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)

She’s working with Republican Sen. Richard Burr on this new bill that tackles various aspects of public health preparedness.

This includes improving capabilities for detecting diseases, rebuilding the health workforce and addressing health disparities in at-risk populations.

“One of the problems we found was that CDC was not collecting data by demographic base, so we didn’t know if communities of color were being hit harder. We put into this bill the process to make sure we’re collecting that data and getting that information right away,” said Murray.

Another part of the bill focuses on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention oversight.

“Demanding accountability and transparency from the CDC is a critical first step to ensuring that the agency provides clear and timely recommendations that Americans find trustworthy,” said Senator Burr (R-N.C.) in a recent statement.

Burr said people have stopped listening to CDC “because of their confusing and conflicting guidance.”

Murray said FDA approvals should also become more diverse.

“When they do FDA approvals that they’re looking at a diverse set of people, what about pregnant women? What about women of color? What about people who are tribal members? What are people in a specific demographic, death data? How are we making sure that whether it’s the test, or the therapeutics, or the vaccines are being tested in all of these communities, so everyone has the best information for themselves,” said Murray.

The proposal would also require the next CDC director to be confirmed by the Senate, and have an agency-wide strategic plan.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee voted 20-2 for the legislation, and Murray said they’re working to get a full Senate vote soon.

This legislation comes as the CDC is about to go under review. Director Rochelle Walensky said the Department of Health will conduct a sweeping review starting next Monday.

The PREVENT Pandemics Act includes the following steps:

• Improving strategy and coordination among public health preparedness agencies.
• Improving capabilities to detect and monitor emerging infectious disease and other threats.
• Enhancing the development and review of tests, treatments and vaccines; and mitigate critical shortages of medical products.
• Improving public health communication and address misinformation.
• Revitalizing the public and community health workforce.
• Accelerating biomedical research to develop medical countermeasures for pandemic threats, and enhance research on the long-term effects of COVID-19 and faster test development.
• Ensuring continued access to mental health and substance use disorder services during public health emergency responses.
• Establishing an independent task force to conduct a comprehensive review of the COVID-19 response.
• Addressing disparities which make public health emergencies harder on at-risk populations and communities.

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