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medpundit |
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Monday, September 30, 2002To shore up the infrastructure, the CDC this summer gave the states $918 million in emergency funds, to be used only on the health response to bioterrorism. The Health Resources and Services Administration added $125 million to prepare hospitals. "The system is only as strong as its weakest link," Gerberding said. "My highest priority is to ensure not only that we can detect a threat, but that we can get countermeasures deployed, down to the level of individual citizens. I worry that in some jurisdictions, that capacity does not exist." At least the CDC realizes there’s a problem at the local level. Now, do they have the means and the will to shore up those weakest links? I’m not even sure they have the authority to order local health departments to shape up. This might be a potential role for the Department of Homeland Security, to mandate that local or state health departments implement plans for a bioterrorist attack and give them a deadline to have them ready. Right now, it seems like an awful lot of them are dithering over it and not doing much in the way of active planning. posted by Sydney on 9/30/2002 07:33:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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