U.S. bioterrorism defense is erratic, GAO report says

System lacks ability to distinguish between harmless and lethal germs

WASHINGTON — The nation’s main defense against biological terrorism —a $1 billion network of air samplers in cities across the country — cannot be counted on to detect an attack, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

The BioWatch system, introduced with fanfare by President George W. Bush in 2003, has exasperated public health officials with numerous false alarms, stemming from its inability to distinguish between harmless germs and the lethal pathogens that terrorists would be likely to unleash in an attack.

Timothy M. Persons, the GAO’s chief scientist and lead author of the report, said health and public safety authorities “need to have assurance that when the system indicates a possible attack, it’s not crying wolf.” Homeland Security Department officials cannot credibly offer that assurance, he said.

“You can’t claim it works,” Persons said.

Missing standards

The Homeland Security Department, which oversees BioWatch, has repeatedly touted the system’s effectiveness while seeking to upgrade it with new technology.

The GAO report challenges the department’s central claims about BioWatch. It also illuminates the nation’s vulnerability to biological terrorism at a time of heightened concern about the reach and resourcefulness of the Islamic State and other extremist groups.

The 100-page document, which was to be released Monday, says that Homeland Security “lacks reliable information” about BioWatch’s “technical capabilities to detect a biological attack.” The Los Angeles Times obtained a copy of the report.

The government has never defined the minimum capabilities, or “performance requirements,” needed for BioWatch to alert authorities to a deliberate release of deadly pathogens and not be fooled by similar but benign bugs that are pervasive in the environment, according to the report.

Homeland Security officials “told us that in the 12 years since BioWatch’s initial deployment, they have not developed technical performance requirements against which to measure the system’s ability to meet its objective,” the report says.

Limitations ‘inherent’

In defending the system, the department cited computer simulations and tests in which biological agents were released in sealed chambers. The GAO said those tests were insufficient to support “conclusions about the system’s ability to detect attacks.”

BioWatch has not been put to the ultimate test of a real-life attack.

In a response appended to the GAO report, a senior Homeland Security official, Jim H. Crumpacker, wrote that bioterrorism “remains a continuing threat to the security of our nation” and that BioWatch is the only “biosurveillance system designed to detect the intentional release” of airborne pathogens.

“The program provides public health officials with a warning of potentially hazardous biological agent release before exposed individuals would typically develop symptoms of illness,” Crumpacker wrote. He added, “It is important to recognize levels of uncertainty and limitations are inherent in any complex technical system.”

BioWatch relies on about 600 air-collection units stationed atop buildings, in transit stations and in other public places in more than 30 urban areas. Mobile units are deployed at some major spectator events, such as the Super Bowl.

Each of the units, about the size of a small refrigerator, sucks in air and blows it over a disposable filter. Once every 24 hours, a technician removes the filter and delivers it to a public health lab for analysis.

Lab personnel look for a DNA match with anthrax or any of four other pathogens considered likely to be used in a biological attack.

BioWatch was developed by U.S. national laboratories and government-hired contractors. Its deployment was accelerated after anthrax-laced letters were sent through the U.S. mail in the fall of 2001, infecting more than 20 people and killing five. The letters were ultimately traced to a U.S. Army scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008 as authorities prepared to seek an indictment against him.

The GAO study was requested by members of Congress after a 2012 Los Angeles Times investigation identified serious shortcomings in BioWatch, including the many false alarms and doubts about whether the system could be relied on to detect an actual attack.