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Local health departments ill-prepared for biological, chemical threats

Web posted June 3, 1998

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A lack of basic technology, such as computers and Internet access, has left local health agencies ill-prepared to respond to threats from biological and chemical agents, public health officials told senators Tuesday.

``If the states are prepared, the nation is prepared. The states are not prepared now,'' warned Ed Thompson, Mississippi's health commissioner and an official of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. He also criticized the focus on planning by federal agencies.

Nearly half of the 3,000 health departments don't have e-mail and about one-third cannot access the Internet, said Ralph Morris, president of the National Association of County and City Health Officials and executive director of the Galveston (Texas) County Health Department.

Morris said too many local agencies -- which are the first to respond to public health threats -- still rely on telephones, fax machines and paper and pencil to find the information they need to evaluate reports, determine the extent of possible exposure and find an expert.

``Our need to respond quickly remains the same,'' regardless of the cause of a public health emergency -- be it an innocent cook at a church supper or an international terrorist, he said.

``Saving time means saving lives,'' Morris added.

The dim assessment alarmed Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., who chaired the hearing of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Department of Health and Human Services.

``I sit here as a citizen and it sounds like we are no further along than five or six years ago,'' Faircloth lamented. ``We're still studying, we're still planning. I would like to hear that it was further along than it is, but if it isn't, it isn't.''