In March 2013 Congress passed and the President signed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act (PAHPRA), Public Law No. 113-5 . The 2013 law builds on work the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has undertaken to advance national health security. These include authorizing funding for public health and medical preparedness programs, such as the Hospital Preparedness Program and the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement, amending the Public Health Service Act to grant state health departments greatly needed flexibility in dedicating staff resources to meeting critical community needs in a disaster, authorizing funding through 2018 for buying medical countermeasures under the Project BioShield Act, and increasing the flexibility of BioShield to support advanced research and development of potential medical countermeasures. PAHPRA also enhances the authority of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to support rapid responses to public health emergencies.