ATTN BEER980.....here's the info I've been sitting on!

[azsnowman]

OK Beer980.....here's the info I've been sitting on for MONTHS, all of our training, etc, etc.......you asked, well....here it is in BLACK AND WHITE print from our local paper....WHEW! I couldnt HOLD IT MUCH LONGER "LOL!"


http://www.wmicentral.com

County readies for biological terror attack




By: Donna Rescorla , The Independent 08/10/2004




HOLBROOK - Navajo County may be far from traditional terrorist targets but that doesn't mean it's immune from such attacks.
"One of the biggest threats to Navajo County is an infection coming in from somewhere else," Bioterrorism Program Manager Kevin Neill said. "People could be visiting Tucson or Phoenix and bring it back.

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"We also have people passing through the county with hazardous materials. Someone could hijack a truck or train in the county. Or terrorists could target the county to prove they can target anyplace."
As with Homeland Security, the bioterrorism program is involved in fighting terrorism but the two programs are funded from different sources. The Homeland Security Tax Force receives funds from the Department of Homeland Security and works out of the sheriff's office. The Bioterrorism Program received money from the federal Centers for Disease Control and works through the public health department.
Bioterrorism is defined as the willful use of biological agents - bacteria or virus - against a population, Neill said. In one scenario, a person could be infected with smallpox and sent out into the general population to spread the disease.
A person or group could also put the infectious agent into the water or food supply or put anthrax into a crop duster and dust a town, Neill said.
Even if the county wasn't the primary target, it could be affected as a refugee center if a terrorist attack occurred in the Valley or even Tucson. Many people have summer homes in the Show Low/Pinetop-Lakeside and Heber/Overgaard areas where they might decide to evacuate. If these refugees include an infected person, the disease could spread across the county, he said.
"Whatever happened in Phoenix, Tucson or Albuquerque, affects us," he said. "The other consideration is that near Salt Lake City and in southern Colorado, the army has its stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons."
Recently the board of supervisors approved a memorandum of understanding with Navapache Regional Medical Center (NRMC) for that center to act as the delivery and storage center for smallpox vaccine for the county.
Smallpox has traditionally been the disease bioterrorism experts are most concerned with but there are others including Ricin which a Japanese terrorist group used to kill dozens of people in a subway in Tokyo a number of years ago. Others include anthrax and salmonella. Neill said one cult tried to take over a county in another state by poisoning salad bars in that county with salmonella.
Anthrax is found naturally in the soil and can be fairly easily manufactured and spread, he said.
"We are not necessarily looking at outside terrorists," Neill said. "It could be an internal group. We just have to look at the Oklahoma City bombings or Rev. Jim Jones."
Neill said his responsibilities include maintaining a level of security by making sure water sources are tested all the time, maintaining contact with NRMC to check on any unusual disease activity and to obtain information from the state lab on what is happening. He has weekly telephone calls with the state agencies to coordinate with state as well as regional preparedness.
Since some terrorists might do something to make people feel vulnerable, they might send something like anthrax to all elected officials. For that reason, people who handle the mail at places such as the county complex are given training on suspicious powders.
Mass smallpox vaccination sites have been set up throughout the county in case they're needed and Neill said his office is coordinating with the White Mountain Apache tribe, the Navajo Nations and the Hopi tribe.
All the diseases in question are reportable by law and if found, they should be treated with suspicion, he said. A single case would be treated and its travel history traced to see if it's naturally occurring or if it was artificially introduced in the area.
"We could be dealing with anything that sickens or incapacitates," he said. "It's sort of a scary field to be in but this is public health. We have to deal with them as we have to deal with measles and chicken pox."
Training is done for school nurses and information given to all the doctors at NRMC to teach them how to recognize these diseases and how to respond. They also have Neill's telephone number because, he said, he's on call 24 hours a day.
The bioterrorism program works hand in hand with public health, he said. Across the state the bioterrorism programs are helping to trap mosquitoes as part of the West Nile Virus effort.
Biological weapons have been around almost as long as mankind, he said. In ancient times, for instance, an army would dump dead animals into the water supply of a walled city under siege, thereby making the water undrinkable.
During the Cold War both the United States and the USSR kept a stockpile of biological weapons, including smallpox. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, who knows where the samples have gone, Neill said.
The goal of terrorists is to disrupt people's lives and wreak havoc with government, business and the economy but, Neill said, "People have to live their lives. They should be more alert to what is going on around them.
"I think we need to increase our awareness. It's like looking both ways before crossing a street."
While serving in the armed forces, he said, he was stationed in the Middle East and noticed that everyone stopped to listen to the news every hour. With the enemy only a few miles away, they wanted to know what was going on. He said he thinks more people in this country need to have that level of awareness.
Just because the people living in the Middle East have this heightened awareness, he added, it doesn't mean they don't go about their lives and enjoy what they do.
Families need to keep to emergency supplies on hand and put together a family emergency response plan to follow whether they will be dealing with wildland fires or bioterrorism, he said, adding each person needs water for three to five days, a food supply and a well understood plan on how to contact everybody in the family and where to meet if they are separated.
Navajo County's Bioterrorism Program has a staff of four, Neill, the public information and training officer, the tribal liaison and an office manager. Three of the four are veterans, with the highest percentage of veterans of all the departments in the county, Neill said.
"I think it's because we have a sense of public responsibility," he said. "That's why we joined the military and that's why we chose to work for this program."
For more information about bioterrorism, people can call the public information officer, Don Walker at 928-524-4750, ext. 23.



©WMICentral 2004