WP: Bioterrorism War Game Shows Lack Of Readiness

[DeepModem Mom]

Bioterrorism War Game Shows Lack Of Readiness

By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 15, 2005; Page A12


The imaginary patients started stumbling into emergency rooms in Munich and Frankfurt, then Istanbul and Los Angeles, and within hours after the start of a war game yesterday, Western intelligence agencies concluded that there had been a choreographed attack on numerous cities by terrorists wielding smallpox pathogens.

By mid-afternoon, health experts realized that millions of people worldwide would soon die agonizing deaths. World leaders -- or at least people posing as them -- who were assembled at a mock Washington summit yesterday interrupted each other and waved their arms as they debated potential real-life choices. Perhaps the most important: Would wealthy nations that possess smallpox vaccine share it with their unprepared neighbors?

The exercise, called Atlantic Storm, featured former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright as the U.S. president and eight current or former high-ranking officials of America's European allies -- such as Britain, France and Germany -- role-playing as the prime ministers of their respective countries....

***

Perhaps the starkest lesson of the war game -- which was sponsored by Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pittsburgh, among other organizations -- was that there is no playbook anywhere to guide international leaders on how to divide up the few extra doses of vaccine, or even who would make such decisions. By the end of the day, the participants agreed that the World Health Organization, a United Nations affiliate, should handle the job, but Albright said that, as a U.S. president pressured by constituencies that mistrust the United Nations, she agreed to that only reluctantly....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10746-2005Jan14.html

[Divernan]

1. Oujr major cities are not prepared to care for their own, let alone others

bush chose to go for the big splash and waste his anti terrorism time and dollars on the Iraq war, when he could have invested the $$$ in preparedness for state and local communities, a large part of which would have been stockpiling vaccines and providing training and equipment to medical units - hospitals and paramedic/emt training and equipment. This has not been done and he has wasted four years.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Excellent point, Divernan! And many supposedly voted for Bush...

because he makes them feel safe.

:eyes:

[RhodaGrits]

3. I attended my local county bioterrorism preparedness session

for the people determined to be the first responders and health professionals who would be tagged to be involved first last year. We are 90 miles from NYC in the region of the NYC water supply. Our area encompasses one of the major "exit routes" - we're where the city people would flee "to".

It was alarming to say the least. We are unprepared, under supplied, under trained and virtually unfunded. The only thing I know is that my neighbors and I will do what we can in the face of certain catastrophe because there has been little/no help federally and the inter-agency power plays between state/city/locals have squandered precious time. A few weeks ago I got a little shoe box with latex gloves and a suit to protect me against bio-contaminants. They admitted that they could get almost no hospital staff to agree to be vaccinated against smallpox after reading the book-thick description of potential side-effects and the legal agreement to hold them harmless. We are supposed to explain these potential side-effects to each person should we need to hold emergency mass public health vaccination clinics. Vaccine was then available to all hospital workers and their immediate families (the thinking was that if workers feared for their families because they might bring home disease, they would not go to the hospital).

I found this mind boggling in the face of what we were spending so senselessly in Iraq while making enemies far faster than we could kill them.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Thanks for your inside info, RhodaGrits...

which confirms our lack of preparation, and the lack of planning and assistance from our government.

[pandemic_1918]

7. Urgent Warning on Bird Flu Contamination of Food Supply

Vietnam has issued an urgent warning on potential bird flu contamination of its food supply

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=h5n1+food

[Last Lemming]

5. Our current medical system

can't handle a bad flu season--much less a rampant smallpox epidemic.

The good news about smallpox is that the mortality rate would probably be only about 30% as opposed to 50-60% for Ebola. The bad news a smallpox epidemic would be a great diversionary tactic if people started getting too nosey about election irregularities.

Good news: our government has the only remaining stockpile of smallpox--Bad news: Our government has the only remaining stockpile of smallpox

Good news: The highest mortality rate will occur in those who are immunocompromised--first to go will be all AIDS patients Bad News: This government is filled with people who think that is good news.

[pandemic_1918]

6. Readiness for Pandemic Flu - NOT

The government is not close to being ready for a flu pandemic, which is getting out of control in Vietnam (9 year old boy died of bird flu after taking a swim) and contaminated food is next

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=ca&ie=UTF-8&q=h5n1+vietnam+food