Read on Twitter
In September 1984,members of the Rajneeshee religious cult in Oregon poured food poisoning bacteria on restaurant salad bars at 10 restaurants in the small town of The Dalles. The motive for the attack was to test a scheme to manipulate the outcome of a local election in the
cult’s favor by making many of the town’s residence temporarily too sick to vote. As it happened , more than 750 citizens of The Dalles contracted food poisoning, and an unknown number of out-of-towners or’s who stopped to eat at one of the contaminated restaurants may also have
been affected. All the state and federal public health authorities investigated the salmonella outbreak & they concluded that it was natural and origin. Only a year later when a cult member confessed to the crime, did the real cause become known.
It was 1991 when the U.S had the first real knowledge that the Russians had a biological weapons program. It came as a tremendous surprise. As we were later to learn that program had reached a level of about 60,000 people working in some 50 different labs
employing some of the very best people in biology. It had been in existence for a long time.
These events led to President Clinton issuing a Presidential Decision Directive where he discussed the need for the departments to begin preparing and planning to deal with issues of terrorism, particularly biological terrorism.
These are excerpts from one of my Dad’s many books on Public Health . Preventative Care and Emergency Preparedness for the uninsured , the indigent , the poorest of the poor , and the richest of the rich . Over the 30 years that he ran Parkland ... He was one of the leaders in
building a public health infrastructure. Hospitals from all over the country studied Parkland’s model . @BillWeirCNN shadowed Dad for an episode of 48 Hours .
@BillMoyers interviewed him for his “Healing and the Mind” series.
@BillMoyers interviewed him for his “Healing and the Mind” series.
During the Reagan administration , Dad worked alongside Senator Ted Kennedy and got legislation passed effectively banning the egregious practice of patient dumping. A law was passed and it was called EMTALA. https://emilyfriedman.com/columns/2011-04-05-emtala.html
Like I said before , Parkland was studied by hospitals all over the country and used as a model for every scenario you can imagine. There were contingency plan scrimmages for Anthrax , bioterrorism , chemical weapons - Parkland is a Public Hospital. . .
Basically,if the big one were ever to hit it was Parkland that was going to be the first tier of a community response system .
The cruel irony that the first Ebola patient twice walked into an ER across town that was a private hospital mostly known for their fancy maternity ward
The cruel irony that the first Ebola patient twice walked into an ER across town that was a private hospital mostly known for their fancy maternity ward
and swanky hotel like rooms for the residents to sleep in ...than they were for disaster preparedness .
As a kid , getting woke up at 3 am or 4am from late night phone calls happened more often than it didn’t .Those late night phone calls came in as it was the customary protocol to alert my Dad when there was a “Code Blue”
A ‘Code Blue’ meant the ER & the Trauma unit in the hospital had no beds. They were full . That’s a big part of the back story behind him getting legislation passed ending patient dumping. Today ,when there is a ‘Code Blue’ the private hospitals alternate taking the overflow
and they are later reimbursed by the State . It took a long time for that type of community cooperation between the medical institutions but it finally happened.
The whole country is going to be Code Blue very soon . Trump has systematically dismantled the Public Health Infrastructure .. I decided to jot down the names of these agencies that served as our Nation’s safety net . Here are several that were mentioned in 2-3 pages .
The Infectious Diseases Society, The Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies at John Hopkins University, The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, Office of Public Health Preparedness was created at HHS
The Health Resources and Services Administration .
The Health Resources and Services Administration .
The National Institute of Health, The Food and Drug Admistration, Department of Defense Secretary Tommy Thompson introduces Homeland Defense Package approved by Congress gave $40 billion to the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act of 1986, CDC,
the Health Alert Network ... those are just the few on the few pages I scanned .
Before the dismantling of our nation’s multitiered emergency response system it was the DOD that dealt with the preparing & planning for issues of terrorism , particularly biological terrorism.
Before the dismantling of our nation’s multitiered emergency response system it was the DOD that dealt with the preparing & planning for issues of terrorism , particularly biological terrorism.
These are just a few of the agencies that made up a multitiered emergency response system. We spend about .0001% on Public Health that we spend on our Defense System.
We need to treat this virus as bioterrorism .
We need to treat this virus as bioterrorism .
My dad considered @IrwinRedlenerMD a brilliant mind and trusted colleague . He is a Public Health Warrior. It is his mission. It is his life work. He is the best. I encourage you to follow him especially during these times we find ourselves. @JoeBiden
The DOD was created to provide America a line of Defense. They know very well a major repeating scenario is the secondary attack scenario. An example of this - After 9/11 , there was a follow up Anthrax attack . There is almost always a second strike of some sort .
When we are most vulnerable we are the most susceptible to being attacked . If there are deaths we need to view it as being attacked, whether this is natural in origin or not - we are still going to lose lives ..
Again, We spend about .0001% on Public Health than we spend on our Military Defense System
Back to those Russian labs I mentioned earlier... In 1992 , Dr. Ken Alibek defected from the Soviet Union . Alibek , Who had lead part of the USSR biological weapons establishment there, supplied in minute new detail what the Russians were doing.
Alibek’s book, ‘Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World-Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It ‘ was explicit.
