July 2005 • Volume 3 • Number 8

U.S. Not Ready for Bioterror

By Robert Green, Senior Editor
 

Inadequate budgets and/or budget snags, bureaucratic ennui, political squabbles and sundry other factors might be colliding to leave Americans more vulnerable to a bio-terror attack than they should be.

Writing on Front Page Magazine.com last month, Prof. William Firshein, Ph.D., recently retired as Wesleyan University's Daniel Ayres Chaired Professor of Biology, identified some of the institutional blocks across the federal, state and local government those seeking better bioterror prevention routinely run up against.

“Our most serious problem concerning bioterrorism is the implementation of our federal mandated preparations, especially in the states themselves. Despite massive defense spending, efforts are lagging in the states. Although all 50 states have plans approved by CDC [the Centers for Disease Control], 26 states have failed to spend their allotted bioterror funds, 39 states have not made information about specific diseases available to the general public, and 48 states do not have enough trained staff to receive and distribute supplies and medicine from a national repository.

“Only four states, according to the independent Trust for America's Health, are adequately prepared for a bioterrorist attack. Such low rates of preparedness are attributed to state budget cuts and to state bureaucracies, where there are disagreements between health agencies in the capitol and those throughout the rest of the state. If we are to be able to mitigate the horrors of bioterrorism, every state must be adequately prepared; their current state of preparedness is completely unacceptable.”

Firshein has published more than 70 articles and reviews in his field.

You can contact Robert Green at RobertGreen@PubSector.com.