CDC Ships 'Chem-Packs' for Preparation

[Snazzy]

CDC Ships 'Chem-Packs' for Preparation

52 minutes ago


By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON - The government is quietly shipping stocks of antidotes against chemical weapons to states under a long-awaited program to boost response to a potential terrorist attack.

New York and Boston, sites of the upcoming political conventions, are among the first areas to receive the "chem-packs."

Within two years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hopes to have the allotments dispersed to every state.

...

The gurney-sized packs come with an assortment of antidotes to the many chemicals available to a terrorist; atropine to fight nerve agents, for instance, or amyl nitrite for cyanide. Some are in autoinjectors for use at the site of an attack, others packaged for emergency-room use.

....

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=533&ncid=533&e=2&u=/ap/20040713/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terror_threat

[DemBones DemBones]

1. It's about time, considering 9/11 was three years ago

and the anthrax mailings followed on its heels.

Better to have umbrellas handy when rain is a possibility.

(Not meant as a criticism of CDC but of the overall government's priorities.)

[riverwalker]

2. never mind

[Windy]

3. But we're all much safer now!!

I mean really, why the chem packs? We won't need them because Bush has made the world sooo much safer!

<sarcasm off>

[Miss Authoritiva]

4. Oh gosh, where to begin.

First, it's rather sweet that New York and Boston will have extra supplies of amyl nitrate, a drug frequently abused as a sexual stimulant, just in time for the national conventions. Good to know.

Second, for most neurotoxins, the antidote must be administered very, very fast. So unless the antidote is at hand -- as it presumably is in Iraq -- and can be readily administered by someone who is not totally freaking out, it's not going to do the victim much good. In reality some of these antidotes would have to be in prefilled autoinjectors and kept in a purse or backpack to be of any use.

Third, as the article notes, "the ability to survive a chemical attack depends on immediate decontamination" as well as the rapid administration of antidotes. But where can the interested consumer go for "immediate decontamination"? Firefighters will have to hose us down as we perform our own Meryl Streep-in-Silkwood rip-the-skin-off scrub downs.

Don't get me wrong: These efforts will save some lives. But unless we're all packing prefilled autoinjectors and there are decontamination centers every half-mile, a good many of us will just have to accept our fates as twitching gelatinous corpses.

[Solly Mack]

5. woohoo...legal excuse for poppers!

Yes, I understand the seriousness of the discussion.

[Name removed]

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