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American Morning
Target: Terrorism - Combating Bioterrorism
Aired October 03, 2001 - 09:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: There have been questions about whether the United States is prepared to deal with a biological weapons attack. A Senate subcommittee holds a hearing next hour on bioterrorism preparedness.
CNN medical correspondent Rea Blakey joins us from Washington with a preview of that. Hello, Rea.
REA BLAKEY, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles. Well the question is: Is the United States ready?
Well, it depends on when and where a biological or a chemical attack occurs. What weapons of mass destruction are utilized, the magnitude of the attack, and of course, which expert you ask.
Now, CNN has interviewed a series of biodefense experts. The overriding response from non governmental sources indicates, no. Based on a wide ranging bioterrorism simulation, like Top Off or Dark Winter, the U.S. is not as prepared as it should be, considering the heightened risk of bioterrorism that we face today.
Now, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, however, has consistently stated the U.S. is prepared for such a threat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOMMY THOMPSON, HHS SECRETARY: I'm here to tell you that I am very confident as Secretary of Health, that if a terrorist attack hits us, as far as bioterrorism, whether it be a virus or a bacteria, we are able to respond extremely quickly, and that we will be able to protect the American's health.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLAKEY: Now if we just examine one possible aspect of a possible bioterrorism attack, smallpox for example. It is not as contagious as the flu or measles, but it is contagious enough to spread quickly.
Now, health experts estimate, based on past outbreaks in Europe, that each smallpox victim could spread that virus to at least 10 others. That is a conservative figure they say.
Now, if 50 people were infected in a biological attack, two weeks later 500 people would be infected, and two weeks after that, 5,000 people.
But a recent stimulated exercise, Dark Winter, representing a fictional biological attack with smallpox in three U.S. cities, found three months after the attack, the virus spread to 25 states and 15 countries. Again, a simulation, killing a million people.
Now, other major preparedness issues include the general consensus that the nation's hospitals would be very quickly overwhelmed by the wounded and the worried; and liberal estimates indicate some 20 million doses of smallpox vaccine are on hand, with another 40 million doses under contract for production. But is that sufficient?
Members of Senate, and the American people, will want to know. Miles?
O'BRIEN: One of the issues that comes up time and again, Rea, is the relationship between federal authorities, intelligence gathering law enforcement, and the local authorities, and how there is sometimes a disconnect there.
Will that be a focus of discussion today on the Hill?
BLAKEY: I'm sure that the senators will get into that, mainly because of the issues of public health. The public health systems is not what it used to be, for example during the Cold War when there was greater communication, when there was a very thorough level of indication between what was going on between localities, regional agencies, as well as the National Public Health System.
That network needs to be enhanced. That's one thing that stuck out repeatedly from the experts that we spoke to. Communication must be enhanced to make sure that we get the information passed from one point to another, to try and contain any possible threat that does occur.
O'BRIEN: Rea Blakey joining us from Washington. Thank you very much for the preview.
One of the witnesses scheduled to testify at that hearing on bioterrorism is Dr. Stephen Cantrill, he is associate director of the Department of Emergency Management at Denver Health Medical Center. He joins us from Washington.
Good to have you with us Dr. Cantrill.
DR. STEPHEN CANTRILL, DENVER HEALTH MEDICAL CENTER: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Now you were involved in the Top Off exercise. Why don't you just describe that briefly for the uninitiated, as to what was attempted and what was accomplished, or perhaps more accurately, what was not accomplished there.
CANTRILL: Well it was a congressionally mandated, no notice, multi site disaster exercise. It involved a biological terrorism attack, simulated obviously, in Denver, Colorado; a chemical incident in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and then there was a radiologic problem here in the Washington area.
O'BRIEN: All simultaneously, right? Those were all going on at the same time, and no one knew what was happening, right?
CANTRILL: Yes.
O'BRIEN: OK.
CANTRILL: Right. And the intent was to see how could federal officials deal with having multiple things happening concurrently, and could they get their resources to where they needed to be, even though you had multiple sites to address.
O'BRIEN: And the bottom line was, it was a disaster, wasn't it?
CANTRILL: Well it was disaster. It was supposed to be a disaster. You learn from drills such as this. We actually learned a fair amount. I think there were problems that we knew existed, we discovered some other problems.
I think the one big problem for us, in terms of the bioweapon terrorism attack, was just an overwhelming of our resources. Hospital, in this day and age, have very little surge capacity. They can't deal with a load that is suddenly 10 to 20 times normal.
O'BRIEN: What's the biggest deficiency you ran into, aside from that? I assume there were a series of them.
CANTRILL: Well, there are several areas I think we need more work. One is, what is the best way -- if you have to give antibiotics to a large number of people in a short period of time; from a logistical point of view, what is best way to do that? I think we are going to be doing some research on that. We need to determine the best ways and get that information out to all the metropolitan areas, because we never know where something like this might occur there.
There were also other concerns, in terms of -- with the national pharmaceutical stockpile, getting it into the area, and then again, getting that distributed, getting it broken down.
O'BRIEN: So, did you have any other thoughts that come to mind? If you had one suggestion to offer the Senate committee today, what would it be?
CANTRILL: Well, I think to help hospitals become prepared for a WMD attack. Hospitals are, by and large, they are financially strapped, reimbursement has been -- they continue to ratchet that down. And yet we see a lot of money going to a lot of different areas for WMB preparedness, but no money going directly to the hospitals so they can put in their decon showers, so they can get their personal protective equipment, which would be useful for a WMD event only.
The hospitals need some help, and also we need to get the medical community educated. That is a large problem as well.
O'BRIEN: Doctor Cantrill, I always get the lurking suspicion that as we talk about this, we are alarming people perhaps unnecessarily.
How would you rate the risks of weapons of mass destruction (OFF- MIKE) ?
CANTRILL: Oh, I think the risk is real. I don't think people need to be alarmed. I think we need to be alert. I think we need to be educated. And I think we need to continue our preparedness.
But there should not be a large degree of alarm.
O'BRIEN: And one final thought, A lot of discussion about gas masks.
Do you own one, and do you recommend anybody buy one?
CANTRILL: I do not own one. I do not recommend that. Certainly the Israelis have them issued to the population, their threat is much greater, in terms of they're a small geographic area as well. Here the threat is not zero, the threat is real. But you don't even know what the gas mask will protect you from.
The gas masks are a very technically complex item, and you need to make sure you are getting the right type. No, I don't recommend gas masks.
O'BRIEN: All right, and he doesn't own one.
Dr. Stephen Cantrill, thanks for your time. Dr. Stephen Cantrill is the associate director of the Department of Emergency Management at the Denver Health Medical Center. He will be testifying a little later on the Hill. We appreciate the preview here on CNN.
CANTRILL: You're welcome.
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