[Mb-civic] Still Not Ready in The ER - Arthur Kellerman - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Still Not Ready in The ER

By Arthur Kellerman
Friday, August 5, 2005; Page A15

One of the fundamental responsibilities of government is to coolly and 
dispassionately assess health threats against the populace and take 
decisive action to counter these threats.

Faced with the twin specters of mass casualties from international 
terrorism and emerging biological threats, our government has failed to 
take effective action on either front.

International terrorism's weapon of choice is explosives -- improvised 
and otherwise. The London attacks and the devastating Madrid bombings 
are only some of the more recent examples. Over the past decade 
terrorist bombings have caused many civilian deaths and injuries in 
Israel, Russia, Bali, Colombia, Iraq, Spain, Egypt, Yemen, Kenya, 
Tanzania, Argentina, Afghanistan, the Philippines and other places, 
including two U.S. embassies in Africa.

But unfortunately, rather than strengthen our nation's beleaguered 
emergency and trauma care system to meet this threat, the federal 
government has turned a blind eye to the problem. Across the United 
States, underfunded emergency rooms and trauma centers lack sufficient 
beds to meet their daily mission, much less absorb large numbers of 
victims from a terrorist attack. Few ambulance personnel know how to 
assess a blast scene or properly evaluate multiple casualties from a 
bombing. The tiny amount of federal funding ($3.5 million) devoted to 
trauma systems planning and development is being targeted for 
elimination by the House.

<>One reason we are so ill-prepared is that the bulk of federal 
preparedness funds have been poured into bioterrorism, a frightening but 
less likely threat. Over the past three years, billions in taxpayer 
dollars have been spent to purchase "sniffer stations," mount an 
ill-fated and ultimately unsuccessful vaccination campaign against 
smallpox, and stockpile antibiotics. There are 17 federally funded 
Centers for Public Health Preparedness in the United States that focus 
exclusively on biological and other exotic weapons of mass destruction. 
There is not one focused on civilian injuries from explosives.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401826.html 

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