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WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congresswoman Lori Trahan’s (D-MA-03) Disease X Act of 2023 was highlighted in a legislative hearing hosted by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee. The hearing, titled “Legislative Solutions to Bolster Preparedness and Response for All Hazards and Public Health Security Threats”, focused on legislation like Trahan’s that would help ensure the United States works rapidly to prepare for and develop the necessary medical countermeasures to combat future pandemics.

Footage of Trahan’s remarks during the House Energy and Commerce Committee Health Subcommittee Hearing can be accessed by clicking HERE or the image below. A full transcript of the exchange is included below.

“How many times did the predicted death toll change over the course of the pandemic? First it was 50 to 60,000 deaths. Then it was 100,000. Every month, the projection went higher while we heard countless cases of nurses and doctors reusing masks and wearing trash bags to protect themselves as states raced against each other and the federal government for shipments of PPE. Hospitals begged ventilator companies for just one more device to help keep a patient alive,” said Congresswoman Trahan, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the bipartisan Pandemic Preparedness Caucus. “Now, three and a half years after the first COVID case was discovered in the U.S., more than one million Americans have tragically lost their lives to the virus. We should urgently be looking for ways to do better moving forward – to ensure we’re never caught flat-footed again.

Earlier this month, Trahan introduced the Disease X Act with Representatives Michael Burgess (R-TX-26), Dan Crenshaw (R-TX-02), and Susie Lee (D-NV-03). She also recently hosted discussions on pandemic preparedness with state and industry leaders. During a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing earlier this year, Trahan previewed the introduction of the Disease X Act.

While highlighting the necessity of the Disease X Act, Trahan also called out Republicans’ flat funding reauthorization of pandemic preparedness programs even after the COVID-19 pandemic spotlighting the drastic underfunding of these critical programs.  

“I’m glad to see that the committee noticed some bipartisan policies for this hearing today – including my bill, the Disease X Act,” Congresswoman Trahan continued. “But I’m disappointed that the majority has decided to move forward with flat funding for the preparedness programs that sit within PAHPA, as well as exclude numerous FDA supply chain policies. Mr. Chairman, I’m concerned that this proposal falls well short of what frontline health workers, public health experts, and infectious disease specialists have said is necessary to prevent another COVID-level pandemic.”

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Congresswoman Lori Trahan

Remarks as Delivered

Energy & Commerce Committee

June 13, 2023

TRAHAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a co-founder and co-chair of the Bipartisan Pandemic Preparedness Caucus, I’ve taken every opportunity in hearings like this one to highlight the unique opportunity we have before us to take the lessons learned through the COVID-19 pandemic and apply them in a way that better prepares our health care system to respond to future, unknown threats to public health. I’m glad to see that the committee noticed some bipartisan policies for this hearing today – including my bill, the Disease X Act.

But I am disappointed that the majority has decided to move forward with flat funding for the preparedness programs that sit within PAHPA, as well as exclude numerous FDA supply chain policies. Mr. Chairman, I’m concerned that static funding falls well short of what frontline health workers, public health experts, and infectious disease specialists have said is necessary to prevent another COVID-level pandemic. 

How many times did the predicted death toll change over the course of the pandemic? First it was 50 to 60 thousand deaths. Then it was 100 thousand. Every month, the projection went higher while we heard countless cases of nurses and doctors reusing masks and wearing trash bags to protect themselves, as states raced against each other and the federal government for shipments of PPE, as hospitals begged ventilator companies for just one more device to help keep a patient alive. Now, three and a half years after the first COVID case was discovered in the U.S., more than one million Americans have tragically lost their lives to the virus. We can and we should be looking for ways to do better moving forward – to ensure we’re never caught flat-footed again.

I’m grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who recognize the importance and the urgency in achieving that goal. Last week, I introduced the Disease X Act alongside Dr. Burgess, Congressman Crenshaw, and Congresswoman Lee to establish a “Disease X” medical countermeasures program at BARDA for unknown viral threats with pandemic potential.

Current funding constraints at BARDA only allow the agency to go so far. With much of BARDA's MCM development work focused on a defined list of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threat agents as well as influenza, we may not be prepared to develop and manufacture at scale future drugs and vaccines against unknown viral threats that can lead to devastating pandemics. The Disease X Act will help BARDA to fully focus on their full list of priorities – including an increased emphasis on emerging infectious diseases with pandemic potential.

Ms. Arthur, BIO supported the introduction of the bipartisan Disease X Act. I’m hoping you can explain the importance of this bill given the difference in the threat landscape now compared with the last PAHPA reauthorization?

ARTHUR: Thank you, Congresswoman Trahan, for introducing that bill. This is actually an opportunity to do activities in R&D and manufacturing scale-up during the interpandemic period that could make us better prepared in the future. We actually learned this lesson even if you look at our response to monkeypox. The great investments made by the partnership between industry and BARDA and the NIH to make smallpox antivirals and smallpox vaccines actually allowed us because of that viral family to have the products for Mpox that we needed. 

So taking that same approach here, we would actually work on platform technologies, monoclonal antibodies, and mechanisms for new oral antivirals and put those to work against a host of known pandemic threats, and then those particular products might actually result in products for known threats, but actually would allow us respond maybe within a hundred days to an unknown threat. 

TRAHAN: And just continuing on with the proposed Disease X program at BARDA, how important do you think it will be for dedicated funding authorized for this program, rather than just pulling funding from BARDA's general medical countermeasures pot?

ARTHUR: We think it's actually very important that this have its own dedicated funding line. If that’s not possible, although we think that’s the right approach, really scaling up BARDA’s overall number to one more like what’s in the PHEMCE multi-year budget, 1.5 to 1.6 billion dollars, would give them the flexibility to work on what we know is already a part of their strategy, which is to do platform agnostic work around viral families. So a separate line item would be optimal, but scaling up the budget would also be important. 

TRAHAN: Thank you, Ms. Arthur. Everyone sitting here today represents a family who lost a loved one to COVID-19 and each of us represents a small business owner who was forced to close their doors – some for good – because of the emergency. We represent children who lost out on valuable in-person learning so they could keep themselves and their families safe when we knew next to nothing about the virus.

So as members of this committee, we have an obligation to take the lessons learned from the past three years and make the investments now to prevent another catastrophic pandemic and the Disease X Act will help get us there. So I look forward to working with members of the committee to pass this legislation with the funding it requires.

Thank you Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

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