The Biennial Review of the HHS and Overlap Select Agent List

The Biennial Review of the HHS and Overlap Select Agent List

Gives information on updates regarding the Division of Select Agents and Toxins' select agent scoring and ranking system. The review is contextualized by abundant criticism of the 2008 Bioterrorism Risk Assessment for overly complex modeling, lack of transparency, failure to use decision trees, parameterization issues, etc. In an effort to standardize and improve the previous system, which relied on widely variable expert opinion, DSAT used a Risk-Based Agent Prioritization Tool (RAPT) using data from agent fact sheets and a Decision Support Framework (DSF).

2020

This poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Microbiology shows the process in which the government applied a DSF to conduct the 2020 biennial review of the SAR. This adjustment in technique was one of the key recommendations of the Committee for Methodological Improvements. DSFs can be run quickly, are more user-friendly and adaptable to new data, and clearly state objectives and key questions of the researchers. The RAPT uses "multi-criteria decision analysis techniques" which DSAT suggests will increase transparency and decrease variability. Essentially, there is a weighted scoring system to determine agent risk, which reduces variability in SME scores and limits bias.