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| CHEMICAL ANTIDOTES BEING SHIPPED TO POLITICAL CONVENTION CITIES |
| 2004-07-13 |
| When are we going to treat the enemy within (radicals) as the enemy within? The government is quietly shipping stocks of antidotes against chemical weapons to states under a long-awaited program to boost response to a potential terrorist attack. New York and Boston, sites of the upcoming political conventions, are among the first areas to receive the "chem-packs." Within two years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hopes to have the allotments dispersed to every state. "It’s a quick way for hospitals to know they’ll have the antidotes they need," Donna Knutson, CDC’s deputy director of terrorism preparedness, said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. The program was begun in part because there has been "an uneven level of protection across the country," added Steve Adams, deputy director of the Strategic National Stockpile Program. Much of the nation’s efforts to prepare for terrorism have focused on biological attacks. For example, the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile contains tons of drugs, vaccines and other medical supplies in storage around the country, so that any U.S. city could receive an emergency shipment within 12 hours. That’s probably plenty of time to react to an incubating infection like anthrax, but the ability to survive a chemical attack depends on immediate decontamination and rapid administration of appropriate antidotes. Yet the antidotes are expensive and have fairly short shelf lives, making them hard for many states to keep stocked. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #1 Chilling, Mark, but such are the times in which we live. I imagine the other major US cities will get their antidotes for the November election and the threatened Madrid-like attack. |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-07-13 11:04:07 PM |