Robert Kadlec

Kadlec said in March 2018 that his office was taking on several efforts to protect the U.S. from "21st century health security threats" such as bio-weapons or chemical weapons. Kadlec said that these threats have continued to rise in the U.S. and abroad.[5]

In September 2019, the Russian State Centre for Research on Virology and Biotechnology—which stores deadly pathogens such as smallpox, Ebola and anthrax—had a gas explosion, which created a potential deadly situation. While none of the lethal pathogens were released during the incident, Kadlec spoke out after the incident, saying, that the potential use of smallpox as a bioweapon means “the virus remains a potential threat to national and global health security.”[6]

In 2019, Kadlec's office provided federal grant funding to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital for leading a partnership of over 60 agencies within five states to establish a "West Coast Center of Excellence in Pediatric Disaster Care."[7]

In January 2018, Kadlec testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in a hearing investigating public health threats and reauthorization of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA). He testified in full support of reauthorizing the PAHPA law.

On May 5, 2020, Kadlec was implicated in an official whistleblower complaint, of participating in multiple schemes to funnel contracts to politically connected companies, even while subject matter experts at the agency determined such contracts were not meritorious, then retaliating against Rick Bright, his Director of BARDA. It was also alleged that Kadlec ignored repeated warnings in January 2020 about potential shortages of N95 face masks.[8]

When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded a U.S. biotechnology company, Emergent BioSolutions, a single-source contract for the company's smallpox vaccine at twice the previous price, Kadlec again spoke out about the importance and urgency of stockpiling that particular vaccine, saying, “We do not know whether all samples of the virus, outside of two WHO-designated labs, actually have been found and destroyed; at the same time, synthetic biology for technology continues to advance and in the future could allow smallpox to be created as a bioweapon. For those reasons, the virus remains a potential threat to national and global health security. Having vaccines and treatments at-the-ready will be imperative to saving lives,”[9] Kadlec previously consulted with Emergent BioSolutions and was part owner of company related to its founder, which he did not disclose in his 2017 nomination.[10][11][12]

At the same time, Kadlec focused on counters to bioweapons and reduced spending on infectious diseases, including canceling funding for a machine that would rapidly produce N95 respirators in a just-in-time production, initially developed through Obama-era BARDA funding.[10][13]

Bright stated a terminated contract with Aeolus Pharmaceuticals was the subject of intense lobbying from John Clerici, a lobbyist. Aeolus has ties to Jared Kushner. Clerici is on their board and called Aeolus CEO John McManus "high maintenance", that "he is the kind of person who would write stories about you for the newspapers" for cancelling the contract. Bright goes on to state that Clerici and Kadlec's staff "continued to play an improper and outsized role in several BARDA contracts". An example of that was Kadlec overriding an interagency recommendation on a drug, choosing to go spend $40 million on an inferior alternative from Alvogen, which was a lobbying client of Clerici.[14][15]

In 2019, Kadlec supported passage of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act (PAHPAIA), writing in July 2019, "PAHPAIA increases the budget authorization and provides ten-year funding for product development. We know next-generation medical countermeasures aren’t developed overnight – in fact, getting a product across the finish line takes many years. Multi-year funding helps BARDA continue building the strong public-private partnerships needed to spur innovation and provide the private sector with the stability needed to produce potentially lifesaving medical countermeasures.".[16][17]