Homeland Security? For Swine Flu?

I watched the press conference today in which the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, was coordinating the United States’ Swine Flu efforts.

From its inception, the Department of Homeland Security has been chargrd with taking the lead in a pandemic (which we do not yet have). I need convincing that this is the best policy.

Not only does a DHS Secretary lack the medical qualifications and expertise to lead the planning for this possible crisis, but this takes her attention away from the whole reason her position exists—protecting the United States from terrorism. The message is that we are not offering the most appropriate response in one area of concern while taking our eye off the ball in another area of concern.

She has been put in charge over the Cabinet Secretary (or actually Acting Secretary—that this position is still not officially filled three months into the administration points to another problem) whose assumed area of expertise is in the current area of concern—public health. The DHS Secretary was placed in charge over the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Acting Secretary Charles E. Johnson and the various agencies under his direction, including the Centers for Disease Control.

The Department of Homeland Security was created specifically to guard against terrorism on U.S. soil. Being the DHS Secretary requires one’s area of expertise to be protecting the U.S. against terrorism. If her area of expertise is in health rather than terrorism, then why is DHS Secretary in charge of health policy? One can argue that a possible pandemic IS a matter of domestic security, but that is wrong, especially at this juncture. The Department of Homeland Security should only become involved only if a pandemic had caused a breakdown of society with the resulting chaos placing the country’s infrastructure and citizens at greater risk of terrorism. We are not even near that situation, but even then, the DHS Secretary would not have the lead but be one of many considerations. Instead, a Department Secretary whose supposed area of expertise is not even in the area of current concern is in charge of Secretaries who are better qualified to handle the situation than she is.