When Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended his vision of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a recent op-ed, he cited one of the agency’s biosurveillance programs as a prime example of the agency’s capabilities: the Biothreat Radar Detection System.
But the “Biothreat Radar Detection System” doesn’t appear to exist — at least, not yet, sources inside and outside the CDC told NOTUS. And new details about how the program might apply AI to biosurveillance are giving biosecurity experts some pause.
“We have shown what a focused CDC can achieve,” Kennedy wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled “We’re Restoring Public Trust in the CDC.” “Its Biothreat Radar Detection System — an advanced early-detection tool — can spot pathogens like H5N1 or MERS early enough to prevent catastrophe.”