A Tribute to Senator Lieberman with the Release of the 2024 National Blueprint for Biodefense

Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense

We all lost a visionary leader and friend with the unexpected passing of Senator Joe Lieberman, who along with Governor Tom Ridge co-chaired the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense for ten years.

His death came just as the Commission was preparing to release our 2024 National Blueprint for Biodefense: Immediate Action Needed to Defend Against Biological Threats. Senator Lieberman, who worked tirelessly to defend Americans against biological threats, was a driving force behind this report. So, it is only fitting that we host a special tribute to Senator Lieberman as we publicly release the new National Blueprint for Biodefense.

The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense (formerly the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense) was established in 2014 to provide a comprehensive assessment of the state of United States biodefense efforts and to issue recommendations that foster change. Subsequently, the Commission has briefed White House Administrations (including then Vice President Biden); testified before Congress; convened numerous meetings with experts; released 12 reports; produced the graphic novel Germ Warfare; and mobilized biodefense conversations and actions in the private and public sectors.

In its  2015 bipartisan report,  A National Blueprint for Biodefense: Leadership and Major Reform Needed to Optimize Efforts, the Commission described biological threats to the Nation and made 33 recommendations to optimize US efforts to prevent, deter, prepare for, detect, respond to, attribute, recover from, and mitigate intentionally introduced, accidentally released, and naturally occurring biological events. Many recommendations from this report have been taken up by the government, including the National Biodefense Strategy, a federal biodefense budget crosscut by the Office of Management and Budget, and the recent Biodefense Posture Review by the Department of Defense.

The world continues to experience rising threats from offensive biological weapons programs, lab accidents, and outbreaks affecting our national security. There have been burgeoning biotechnological advances in medical countermeasures (e.g., antibiotics, antivirals, vaccines, diagnostics) yet huge gaps in prevention, deterrence, preparedness, detection, response, attribution, recovery, and mitigation still remain. The federal government must address gaps in the US biodefense enterprise. Nine years after its seminal report, the Commission is releasing the 2024 National Blueprint on Biodefense with specific recommendations for government leaders in Congress and the Administration to strengthen the federal government’s biodefense posture.

Learn more here: A Tribute to Senator Lieberman with the Release of the 2024 National Blueprint for Biodefense - Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense (biodefensecommission.org)