Public health found still not ready for bioterrorism

Past neglect of the system requires a lengthy and consistently funded repair effort, officials say.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Jan. 12, 2004.

Washington -- A new study finds that states are only marginally better prepared for a bioterrorist attack today than they were before Sept. 11, 2001, despite the nearly $2 billion in federal funds that have since been pumped into their budgets.

No state scored a perfect 10 on indicators that were selected by the Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit health promotion group, to reflect the capabilities the organization believes every state public health system should have in a post-9/11 world.

The report, "Ready or Not? Protecting the Public's Health in the Age of Bioterrorism," assessed areas of improvement and areas of continued vulnerability in the nation's effort to prepare for bioterrorism and other large-scale health emergencies.

"Are we ready or not? The answer is not," said Shelley Hearne, PhD, Trust's executive director. "While there has been some progress made, we cannot fix overnight a system that has been neglected for over 20 years," she told a group of congressional staffers and others assembled by the Alliance for Health Reform for a Dec. 11, 2003, briefing.

California, Florida, Maryland and Tennessee scored the highest among the states, meeting seven of the trust's 10 measures. Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Mexico and Wisconsin scored the lowest, meeting just two.

Nearly three-quarters of states received positive marks for five or fewer of the indicators.

The report measured a state's preparedness level in three general categories: