Homeland Security to be lead in flu crisis

Brock N. Meeks Chief Washington correspondent • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - If the nightmare of an avian flu pandemic emerges from the dark chapters of doomsday scenarios, it will fall to the Department of the Homeland Security, not the medical establishment, to manage the crisis, according to federal documents and interviews with government officials.

The DHS lead role, however, seems at odds with operational plans that call for the Department of Health and Human Services to be the government’s go-to agency in such a crisis.

According to current documents outlining operational plans for public health and medical emergencies, HHS “is the primary Federal Agency responsible for public health and medical emergency planning, preparations, response, and recovery.” 

That HHS planning document, currently under revision and circulating among federal agencies for comment, seemingly conflicts with the federal National Response Plan, a kind of overarching playbook for how to manage any number of national disasters, from terrorist events to hurricanes and floods. But under the National Response Plan, which also plans for actions in case of pandemics, DHS assumes top authority when an “incident of national significance” is declared. 

Officials from DHS and HHS told MSNBC.com that the departmental statements outlining the chain of authority aren’t in conflict at all. 

An influenza pandemic “would obviously be declared an ‘incident of national significance and DHS would be the overall in-charge agency,” said Brian Doyle, a DHS spokesman.

Doyle noted the “unique partnership” his agency has with HHS.  “HHS would be the lead agency on the health side of it,” he said, echoing comments made by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in late August.

The first such “incident of national significance” was declared in August after Hurricane Katrina hit; however, federal coordination among agencies and state and local governments broke down on so many levels that even President Bush was forced to acknowledge that the plan was flawed.

In the event of a flu pandemic, “the way it works is that DHS is going to turn to [HHS] to work with the states and the locals on the actual health and medical response to what’s going on,” said Mark Wolfson, an HHS spokesman.

“In the meantime, if we’re dealing with a pandemic situation, where we’ve got people getting sick all over the country and all over the world, then what Homeland Security is going to be doing is coordinating the overall federal response to implications of the pandemic,” he said. 

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