For video of the exchange, CLICK HERE
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper today called for more focused efforts to prevent future pandemics. In a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) hearing, Hickenlooper asked National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci what more needs to be done to prevent future pandemics like COVID-19 and Monkeypox.
Fauci called for more research into countermeasures before pandemics arise, an effort Hickenlooper has led in the Senate. Earlier this year, two Hickenlooper bills passed out of committee. The Early Countermeasure Discovery Act would improve the development of preventative treatment and research into pathogens before they cause the next pandemic. The Modernizing Biosurveillance Capabilities and Epidemic Forecasting Act would modernize and codify Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) programs that Hickenlooper, Cassidy Introduce Bill to Strengthen Surveillance and Forecasting of Pandemic-Causing Viruses focus on surveillance and forecasting of pandemic-causing viruses.’
Hickenlooper: “In terms of the next public health emergency, how concerned are you that this next public health emergency will be one we don’t have vaccines or therapeutics for?”
Fauci: “There are two approaches that we have described in detail in several publications and several of our white papers – what’s called the prototype pandemic and prototype pathogen response. In other words to look at multiple families [of viruses] and there are about 7-8 high priority families… and to do fundamental core research for example to get commonalities among the pathogens within a family and to start to develop vaccines, put them in phase one, and have them ready to go…”
Hickenlooper: “I support that approach. I think that’s the right direction to go and make sure we are as prepared as one can be for what is unknowable.”
For full video of the exchange, CLICK HERE.
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