§284s Tick-borne Diseases

Summary

The Secretary of Health and Human Services must keep doing and supporting research on diseases spread by ticks and other vectors. That research includes studies about how the diseases happen, how to prevent and treat them, how to diagnose them, how long illness lasts, and how to track outbreaks. Every three years, the Secretary must include in the required report information about what the National Institutes of Health is doing on tick-borne disease research. The Secretary must create a Tick-Borne Disease Working Group to review HHS efforts, improve coordination, and set research priorities. The group must make or update, within 2 years after December 13, 2016, a summary of ongoing research, progress, federal activities, research gaps, its meetings, and the comments it received. The group must also give recommendations, get input from states, local groups, patients, doctors, researchers, and industry, and meet at least twice a year. It will have seven federal members (including representatives from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, FDA, CDC, NIH, and other HHS offices) and seven nonfederal public members (doctors, scientists, patients or family members, patient advocacy nonprofits, and other useful experts). The group must send reports to the Secretary and Congress and post them online every 2 years starting within 2 years after December 13, 2016. It is an advisory committee under the Federal Advisory Committee Act and will end 6 years after December 13, 2016.