Group`s Report Finds States` Bio-Preparedness Lacking

What can you get for $2 billion?

If it’s the money pumped into bioterror response readiness by the federal government in the last two years or so, the answer is a level of state preparedness that is only “modestly better” than it was before that money was spent.

That conclusion comes from the non-profit advocacy group Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), which examined health-emergency preparedness in all 50 states and the District of Columbia for a report titled Ready or Not? Protecting the Public’s Health in the Age of Bioterrorism.

For the report, TFAH judged states by 10 key indicators to assess where they’ve improved and where they’re still vulnerable. The overall picture was not encouraging: No state met more than seven of the indicators, and only four—California, Florida, Maryland and Tennessee—achieved that many. Five more (Alabama, Nebraska, New York, Rhode Island and Washington) achieved six, and 13 more met five. That left 28 states and the District of Columbia meeting fewer than half of the group’s readiness barometers.

“Right now, we’re only modestly better prepared than we were prior to 9/11,” says Laura Segal, TFAH’s director of communications and a coauthor of the report. “Part of the problem is that we’re trying to make up for decades of disrepair overnight. That’s very difficult to achieve.”

TFAH’s 10 indicators broadly dealt with funding (states spending what they’re given; funding local health departments; and maintaining or increasing their own public-health appropriations), core infrastructure preparedness (ability to distribute “push packs”; having a) appropriate and b) enough laboratory facilities; having no more than three counties lacking high-speed connections to the national Health Alert Network (HAN); having a CDC-approved bio-incident response plan) and “double duty” preparedness functions (having a completed or draft plan for dealing with pandemic influenza; providing essential, specific information to health providers and the general public during the SARS epidemic).

The good news: All 50 states and DC had initial bioterrorism response plans, and 43 states had at least one laboratory that could handle dangerous biological agents. Also, 29 states and DC met the HAN connection requirement.

The bad news: Only two states could report full appropriate staffing (doctors, nurses and pharmacists) to receive and distribute pharmaceuticals, antidotes and other medications from the Strategic National Stockpile, and just six said they had sufficient lab facilities certified to Biosafety Level 3.

With this picture in mind, TFAH offered a trio of recommendations aimed at speeding improvements in the nation’s public-health readiness. These were:

1) Public-health agencies must be ready for everything, not just bioterrorism. Federal funds must come with an “all hazards” flexibility, and standards for state and local preparedness must be established.

2) Health security requirements should ensure the protection of all citizens. This includes the CDC tracking state/local expenditures; verifying standards are being met; and establishing rules maintaining core public-health funding levels.

3) A summit should be convened to develop a blueprint for America’s public-health future and begin modifying the system to meet current challenges.

“We need to work on things like recruiting the workforce, getting the vaccine stockpile up to shape, getting modern equipment into labs,” says Segal. “There are a lot of things that, comparatively, would be pretty meager investments. We just need the impetus to get them done.”

For more, see https://healthyamericans.org/state/bioterror).