Global Security Newswire

A new report warns that U.S. economic instability is prompting leaders to pull funds from programs aimed at preparing communities for acts of bioterrorism or other major disasters, USA Today reported today (see GSN, Oct. 8).

"The economic crisis could result in a serious rollback of the progress we've made since Sept. 11," 2001, said Jeffrey Levi, head of Trust for America's Health, a nonpartisan think tank that released an annual report on U.S. preparedness for a major health threat.

The federal government and 11 states have slashed public health funding so far, and a worsening economy could lead more governments to do the same, Levi said. A bioterrorism incident might cause more devastation if medical facilities are inadequately supplied or unprepared to handle a large influx of patients, he warned.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday told USA Today that his greatest fear was a "mass event: a big outbreak of plague or some other kind of biological weapon or a nuclear explosion."

"That's the area where the most work needs to be done," he said. "If we don't consistently invest, we will have a problem."

Securing public and private funds for terrorism response programs is difficult, Chertoff said, "because you're asking people to invest in something that they haven't seen yet -- or haven't seen since the anthrax attacks of 2001. Therefore, it seems less urgent than, how do we repair the schools today."

Levi's group found that U.S. readiness for large-scale health threats has made "significant progress" since hospitals and states governments began receiving billions in funding six years ago. Every U.S. state now has a viable distribution plan for vaccines and other treatments in a major health crisis, up from only seven states in 2005, the report states (Thomas Frank, USA Today, Dec. 10)..

However, federal funds for state and local readiness have fallen by more than 25 percent since reaching $919 million in fiscal 2005, Levi said (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy release, Dec. 9).

State readiness levels differ significantly, the report says. The group determined that the best prepared states were Louisiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin; it assigned its lowest readiness scores to Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Montana and Nebraska.

The United States has made "incredible accomplishments" in preparing state and local governments for health emergencies, according to Richard Besser of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. States have received $6.3 billion in CDC preparedness funds (Frank, USA Today).