Robert Scott

After a week of facing tough questioning from congressional committees, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. found something he could agree with: funding continued wastewater surveillance for ongoing viral threats.

During a budget hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., asked Kennedy to support the bipartisan PREDICT Act that would continue funding for and expand wastewater surveillance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for viruses like the measles, which has plagued South Carolina and other states.

“When someone is infected with a virus like measles or the flu, they shed viral material often before they even are aware that they are sick,” Scott said. “CDC helped work through the sequencing of positive wastewater samples from 20 wastewater sites testing for measles to South Carolina, this critical work highlights the best kind of government, one that works in the background on prevention and saving lives using smart science.”

It should be in every community and every state, Scott said.

“Americans deserve a public health system that sees threats coming before they become emergencies, and the PREDICT Act brings us one step closer to that reality,” he said.

“Absolutely,” Kennedy said, when asked for his support for the bill. “I absolutely will work with you on the PREDICT Act. It's something that's very personally important to me, to have more wastewater surveillance. And we are also putting $325 million in this budget into a new Biothreat Radar (Detection) System.”

That system would combine surveillance like wastewater and traveler testing with rapid detection and genomic surveillance with platforms designed to rapidly disseminate the existence of emerging threats across public health.

“I think it would be a perfect fit” for wastewater surveillance, Scott said.