Senator Wants Funding to Update Pandemic Flu Response Stockpile

Congress’s failure to fund pandemic flu preparedness has left the nation’s stockpile full of “expired vaccine components that don’t match current strains,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said.

To address this, Baldwin wants to create a funding authority for pandemic flu response efforts in the Health and Human Services’ office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). She offered an amendment to an emergency preparedness bill—which she ultimately withdrew—to provide $632 million annually for fiscal years 2019 to 2023 to allow the program that develops and collects countermeasures for the national stockpile to better prepare for a pandemic.