Amid construction of a UCLA science building, Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger awarded a $9-million grant to the UCLA School of
Public Health and signed a bill in an effort to improve public
health.
The money will fund a new laboratory dedicated to tracking and
responding to disease outbreaks and will be located at the
California NanoSystems Institute.
“This lab will improve California’s ability to
diagnose and respond to disease outbreaks, bioterrorism and other
threats ““ that is why both the state and Los Angeles are
investing homeland security dollars into this project,”
Schwarzenegger said.
The grant will triple the size of the original plans for the
UCLA High Speed, High Volume Laboratory Network for Infectious
Diseases ““ initially funded with $6 million from the federal
2006 Department of Defense Appropriations Bill ““ making the
lab capable of processing high quantities of biological samples
within hours.
The lab should be in full operation within a year, said Scott
Lane, who will lead research at the facility; Lane has worked at
the University of California-managed Los Alamos National Laboratory
in New Mexico for 24 years.
Linda Rosenstock, dean of the UCLA School of Public Health, said
the lab will revolutionize the way scientists track disease
outbreaks by dramatically shortening the time needed to produce
effective vaccines.
“With this technology, we will be able to do for diseases
what we do for weather: be able to forecast where and when diseases
are coming,” Rosenstock said.
The lab will also become a training ground for public health and
laboratory experts in infectious-disease management.
Lane said he is excited about the opportunities UCLA students
will have to participate in cutting-edge research.
“I have been trying to get funding for this project for 10
years, so today is a pretty big day for me,” Lane said.
The bill Schwarzenegger signed, which establishes the
state’s new Department of Public Health, also opens up a new
professional sphere into which students of the UCLA School of
Public Health will be able to explore.
The new department also presides over the new Office of
Women’s Health and Office of Multicultural Health.
Bill author Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, said the
establishment of the new Department of Public Health was part of a
four-year effort and was glad local public health officials will
finally have state support.
Schwarzenegger said the Department of Public Health will also
aid the state in improving emergency preparedness.
“Public safety is my top priority, personally,” said
Schwarzenegger, who promised to collect more federal homeland
security funds for California when he campaigned in 2003.
But not everyone in California is convinced the Republican
governor is using all the resources available to him. A recent
state audit showed that Schwarzenegger has not used half of the
federal homeland security funds allotted to the state.
Nonpartisan state Auditor Elaine Howle wrote a letter to the
governor and other legislators on Tuesday questioning whether
California has “sufficiently tested the ability of the
state’s medical and health systems to respond during
emergencies.”
Of the $954 million in homeland security funds awarded to the
state from 2001 to 2005, only 42 percent of it had been spent as of
June 30, 2006.
In the letter, Howle said she is also concerned that the
governor’s Office of Emergency Services is behind schedule in
its review of the emergency plans for 35 of California’s 58
counties.
Howle’s concerns have taken center stage in the Democratic
Party’s latest criticisms of the Schwarzenegger
administration.
Jeff Millman, press secretary for the California Democratic
Party, said this state should have more funding per capita than
other states due to the state’s higher risk as a target for
terrorism. Millman used Wyoming as a comparison, which has double
the funding per capita that California has.
When asked about the auditor’s concerns, Schwarzenegger
admitted that there is a problem with the amount of money being
dedicated to homeland security and emergency preparedness in
California, but to remember that he came into office in 2003 with
those problems in full swing.
“You can’t fix all those problems in a three-year
period,” Schwarzenegger said.