In the News
News articles demonstrating the importance of wastewater monitoring as an information sharing tool and early warning system for communities
What Experts Are Saying
About Wastewater Monitoring.
“During COVID-19, efforts to surveil wastewater proved to be an effective early-warning tool. The federal government should consider bolstering these efforts to prepare for a future pandemic.”
Source: Recommendation submitted by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which accompanies the committee’s final report.
“The CDC is not perfect — we know that better than anyone. But it needs to be strengthened, not hamstrung. To empower people and their communities to protect themselves from a wide range of health threats, CDC reforms should strengthen our nation’s early warning systems with sustained investments in laboratory networks, genomic sequencing, and wastewater surveillance….”
Source: Eight former directors of the CDC: Drs. William Foege (1977-1983), William Roper (1990-1993), Jeffrey Koplan (1998-2002), Julie Gerberding (2002-2009), Tom Frieden (2009-2017), Brenda Fitzgerald (2017-2018), Robert Redfield (2018-2021), and Rochelle Walensky (2021-2023).
“To maintain these modernized, public-private defenses against natural and deliberate threats, sustained funding from Congress is needed. Some of these efforts were launched with a one-time post-pandemic funding boost and could vanish if that support isn’t renewed... wastewater surveillance was funded in fiscal year 2024 by remaining Covid supplemental funds, but there’s no appropriation line for these efforts, making it unfunded under the Continuing Resolution.”
Source: STAT opinion piece making the case for continued funding for emerging disease surveillance by Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner during the first Trump administration, and Mark McClellan, former FDA commissioner and administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during former President George W. Bush’s administration.
“Wastewater surveillance is and will continue to be a valuable component of the nation’s strategy to manage infectious disease outbreaks.”
Source: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAM) phase 1 report - Wastewater-based Disease Surveillance for Public Health Action
"By addressing shortcomings of the current wastewater surveillance system, many of which originated in its rapid development under a pandemic emergency, the public value of wastewater data can be elevated and provide the foundation for more nimble public health responses to ongoing and future threats."
Source: Guy Palmer, DVM, PhD, chair of the committee that authored the NAM wastewater report, in a news release accompanying the phase 1 report.
“Over 95% of U.S. adults “would take steps to protect themselves if wastewater monitoring data indicated disease transmission in their area.”
Accompanying quote from researchers: “These findings indicate strong support for wastewater monitoring for infectious diseases among U.S. adults across various sociodemographic groups and intention to use reported wastewater data to guide certain health-related behaviors.”
Source: Nationwide survey conducted by Porter Novelli Public Services.