Homeland security

Homeland Security Struggling to Fund Chem-Bio Defense

The Department of Homeland Security is facing prolonged budget cuts in its chemical and biological defense portfolio, as it works to address concerns that state and local municipalities are underprepared for a potential attack.

As technologies advance, the prospect of an adversary using a biological weapon — involving biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria or viruses — or a chemical warfare agent to target the U.S. homeland is becoming more probable, analysts and officials said.

In terms of biosecurity, “we are much better prepared than we were” post-9/11, said Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. “But we are not where we need to be, and the progress is, in some cases, somewhat fragile.”

The world has witnessed the use of chemical weapons against hundreds of people in Syria in recent years, said Rebecca Hersman, director of the project on nuclear issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Earlier this year, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was assassinated in Malaysia with the nerve agent VX, and the Islamic State has launched multiple chemical attacks against Iraqi and Syrian forces since 2016.