The White House’s pandemic preparedness team has quietly withered to a single part-time employee.

Last month, Dr. Gerald Parker, the top White House pandemic preparedness official, resigned as senior director for the National Security Council's Biosecurity and Pandemic Response directorate. His exit drew needed, though still scant, attention to a troubling reality: the biosecurity office now has no full-time staff, and the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR), which some headlines mistakenly claimed Parker led, has sat empty since late June.

This collapse comes as pandemic preparedness and public health programs are being dismantled, measles outbreaks in undervaccinated communities reach a 33-year high, and H5N1 bird flu spreads through U.S. farms. The W

See Full Page