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medpundit |
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Monday, May 10, 2004Two years after Congress passed legislation outlining specific steps for preventing, detecting and responding to terrorist incidents, Lieberman said the Bush administration 'has not come close to complying with the basic requirements and goals' of the measure. Specifically, he said, key staff positions have gone unfilled, public health laboratories are poorly equipped, mandatory progress reports have not been filed, hospitals do not have the beds or equipment to handle mass casualties, and there remains confusion over the roles and responsibilities of various local, state and federal agencies. And the National Preparedness Plan 'is merely a listing of bioterrorism-related activities' underway, Lieberman wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. There's probably a lot of blame to go around here. You can blame the local and state health departments for not taking the threat seriously. And you can blame the CDC and HHS for not providing the leadership to make them take it seriously. But Lieberman's assessment seems to be on the money, despite Thompson's claims otherwise. There hasn't been any attempt by my local or state public health departments to educate physicians on responding to or recognizing a bioterror threat. Glad to see someone's pointing this out. (Why did the Democrats give up on Lieberman, anyway? He seems to be the only one among them who treats the war on terrorism seriously.) posted by Sydney on 5/10/2004 08:19:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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