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Heinrich, Rounds Introduce Legislation to Leverage Artificial Intelligence for Pandemic Preparedness and Response

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), co-chairs of the Senate Artificial Intelligence (AI) Caucus, today introduced legislation to leverage AI for national pandemic preparedness and response through a program called MedShield. The legislation would implement a recommendation of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. 

MedShield would be the United States’ “shield” to proactively protect the nation against future pandemics and avoid the preparedness issues that plagued the nation at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. To that end, MedShield would foster collaboration between the public and private sectors as well as with global allies and partners. The program would leverage AI to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of U.S. pandemic prevention and response across five key areas:

  • Pathogen detection and surveillance

  • Vaccine development

  • Therapeutic development

  • Modeling for pathogen tracking and vaccine distribution

  • Rapid manufacturing of vaccines and therapeutics.

“AI holds amazing potential to supercharge major scientific and medical advances – including our ability to anticipate and address the next public health crisis,” said Heinrich, Founder and Co-Chair of the Senate Artificial Intelligence Caucus. “By leveraging AI, our Medshield Act gives us a significant advantage in preparing for the emergence of new biological threats to prevent the next pandemic.”   

“Given millions of deaths and trillions of dollars in economic costs resulting from COVID-19, we need to make strategic investments in pandemic prevention and preparedness. I believe AI should play a key role in those efforts” said Rounds. “The MedShield program would utilize AI to help the U.S. identify pathogens that pose pandemic threats and work quickly to develop necessary protections. I’m pleased to be introducing this legislation with Senator Heinrich, my co-chair of the Senate AI Caucus, to leverage AI to save lives.”

"I strongly support and applaud Senators Rounds’ and Heinrich’s leadership in introducing legislation to create the MedShield program. This critical program is a key recommendation from the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, recognizing the transformative role AI can play in pandemic preparedness,” said Ylli Bajraktari, the former Executive Director of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. “The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for rapid innovation in detecting threats and accelerating vaccine and therapeutic development with AI. MedShield will bring together the power of AI and human ingenuity, significantly enhancing our ability to respond to future biological threats with speed and precision. This legislation is a crucial step toward creating an integrated AI-enabled system that will safeguard public health and our national security."

The legislation includes:

  • Findings and a Sense of Congress addressing the nation’s need to be better prepared for a pandemic, noting the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) recommendation and the need to avoid an initiative such as Operation Warp Speed for the next pandemic.

  • Requirement for the United States Department of Health and Human Services to operationalize AI to implement the NSCAI recommendation.

  • Authorization of funding for each fiscal year during FY 2025 – 2029.

The text of the bill is here. 

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