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Hospital Surge Model - AHRQ The AHRQ Hospital Surge Model estimates the hospital resources needed to treat casualties arising from biological (anthrax, smallpox, pandemic flu), chemical (chlorine, sulfur mustard, or sarin), nuclear (1 KT or 10 KT explosion), or radiological (dispersion device or point source) attacks. When you run the Hospital Surge Model, you select one of the above scenarios and specify the number of casualties you want to assume need to be treated in your hospital(s). The casualties are treated, as necessary, in the Emergency Department (ED), in the ICU, or on the floor. The hospital provides a standard level of care to all casualties. http://hospitalsurgemodel.ahrq.gov/
STOCKTON SPRINGS, Maine, Oct. 31, 2008 (AP) A 55-year-old gunman who had been on the lam for a week held 11 fifth-graders hostage at an elementary school Friday but was taken into custody without any harm to the children, police said.
Randall Hofland, 55, of Searsport, was tackled outside a fifth-grade classroom by a state trooper, who was among the first police officers at the scene, authorities said.
Hofland had released all the students and had given his handgun to one of them before he was arrested and taken to the Waldo County Jail in Belfast, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. The students were removed from the school.
The incident unfolded around the start of the day at Stockton Springs Elementary School when Hofland walked into the classroom. State police were called at 8:42 a.m. and Hofland was arrested about 20 minutes later.
Hofland was the object of a manhunt that began on the night of Oct. 23 after he allegedly pointed a gun at a local police officer who stopped him during a seat belt safety check in neighboring Searsport. Hofland drove off, eventually abandoning his car in a field.
A two-mile stretch of U.S. 1 was closed to traffic for a time during the search, which involved more than three dozen police officers, including the state police tactical team.
Schools in School Administrative District 56, including Stockton Springs Elementary School, were closed the day after Hofland fled out of concern for students’ safety.
Radiation Detectors’ Value Is Questioned GAO Says Agency Overstated Efficacy
By Robert O’Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 30, 2008; A15
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security have overstated the performance of costly new radiation detectors designed to prevent the importation of radiological materials that could be used in bombs, according to an unreleased government report.
The department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office has claimed in a recent report that new tests show the detection machines, known as Advanced Spectroscopic Portal monitors, can more accurately detect and identify radioactive materials than existing equipment in use across the country, the Government Accountability Office said in its report.
The detection office’s assessment is part of an effort by the troubled Bush administration program to win congressional approval to deploy the machines.
But auditors who have examined the test results said the office’s claims cannot be backed up by statistical evidence. That’s because the data collected from what is called the Phase 3 test was too limited, according to the report by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.
“Because the limitations of the Phase 3 test results are not appropriately stated in the Phase 3 test report, the report does not accurately depict the results from the tests and could be misleading,” the GAO auditors wrote.
The GAO findings trouble lawmakers who have expressed concern that the department is trying to push technology without knowing whether it is worth the expense. The GAO has said the machines could cost $778,000 each to buy and install, far more than detection office estimates two years ago.
“I’m concerned that the testing for the new detectors remains flawed,” said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, one of the panels that has been examining the program. “We still don’t know if this extremely expensive technology works any better than the current equipment. Until there is objective and concrete evidence that the new machines have clear benefits over the existing detectors, I cannot support additional procurements.”
In a letter responding to the GAO conclusions, the detection office derided the findings as “misleading and not substantiated.” The detection office said the GAO has failed “to acknowledge the depth and breadth” of the program’s test campaign.
In a statement, a homeland security spokeswoman said the detection office “is currently undertaking a comprehensive test and evaluation program on ASP systems and will use previous test data as well. The department has been following a prudent path leading to certification of ASP systems.”
The dispute is the latest in a series over the last two years that have slowed development of the radiation detector program, one of the Bush administration’s top national security initiatives.
The GAO has repeatedly asserted that the detection office has misled Congress about the costs of the machines and their effectiveness, questions that homeland security officials say are misguided.
The project was launched in July 2006 with the award of $1.2 billion in contracts to three companies for the development and deployment of the machines. Those contract awards came after the detection office delivered a report to Congress about the cost and effectiveness of the machines.
Several months later, the GAO found that the detection office’s estimates for detection rates were overstated and that the costs of the machines were significantly understated.
As a consequence, lawmakers mandated that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff personally certify that the machines represent a significant operational improvement over existing equipment before they can be fully deployed.
Last year, the detection office conducted two rounds of tests of the machines, in part to support Chertoff’s certification decision. The GAO concluded that the detection office’s first round of tests were conducted in a biased way that “enhanced the apparent performance of the ASPs.”
After Customs and Border Protection officials questioned the operational effectiveness of the machines in field tests, Chertoff announced a delay in his certification decision.
The GAO’s new report focuses on the second round of detection office tests, called Phase 3. Detection office officials told government auditors that Phase 3 tests showed the machines “were as good as or better than” existing equipment “at detecting the presence of radiological source materials at low levels of radiological activity,” the GAO report said.
The GAO also answered complaints from the detection office that auditors ignored the extent of the program’s testing.
“The benefits conferred by influenza vaccination—to recipients and to their close contacts—were hotly disputed at an international medical meeting this week.
Presenters at the 48th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and the 46th annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (ICAAC-IDSA) presented abundant but often contradictory evidence regarding flu vaccine’s direct and indirect protective abilities.
A study published earlier this month in the New England Journal of Medicine (and placed online in September) found that giving the flu shot to pregnant women lowered both their risk of flu and also the risk for their newborns, who were too young to be vaccinated themselves. Reports in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine in September and the Lancet in August contended that flu vaccine’s ability to protect the elderly from death and from pneumonia has been overstated, and several papers have pointed out that, while vaccination in the elderly has increased, the mortality rate has not declined…”
A Dillon child who was potentially exposed to rabies by a bat is under the care of a physician after the bat tested positive for rabies, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported today.
“The little girl was potentially exposed while she was at asleep in her home,” said Sue Ferguson of DHEC’s Bureau of Environmental Health.
“People usually know when they have been bitten by a bat,” Ferguson said. “However, bats have small teeth that may leave marks not easily seen, and some situations require that you seek medical advice even in the absence of an obvious bite wound.
“For example, if you awaken and find a bat in your room or if you see a bat in the room of an unattended child, or near a mentally impaired or intoxicated person, seek medical advice and have the bat tested,” Ferguson said.
According to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of the recent human rabies cases in the U.S. have been caused by rabies virus from bats.
Ferguson said once the rabies virus reaches the brain, the disease is fatal to humans and animals, so the man is receiving preventive inoculations. According to Ferguson, anyone bitten, scratched or otherwise exposed to the saliva of a rabid animal must undergo immediate measures to stop the virus from reaching the brain.
“Avoid wild animals acting tame and tame animals acting wild,” Ferguson said. “About 400 South Carolinians must undergo preventive treatment for rabies every year, with most exposures from being bitten or scratched by a rabid or suspected rabid animal. Wild animals carry the disease most often, but domestic pets can contract rabies as well.
“Therefore, to protect both the pets and their owners, we strongly encourage residents to make sure their pets are regularly vaccinated against the disease. State law requires that all pets be vaccinated against rabies.
“If you think you have been exposed to the rabies virus through a bite, scratch or the saliva of a possibly infected animal, immediately wash the affected area with plenty of soap and water,” she said. “Then be sure to get medical attention and report the incident to DHEC.”
This is the second confirmed rabid animal in Dillon County in 2008. Last year, there were three rabid animals confirmed in the county. In 2007, there were 162 confirmed cases of rabies in animals in South Carolina. So far this year, there have been 145 confirmed cases in animals in the state.
For more information about rabies, see DHEC’s Web page at: http://www.scdhec.gov/rabies or contact DHEC’s Dillon County Environmental Health Office at (843) 774-0648. The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web page about rabies can be found at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is to provide food assistance to nearly 20,000 people who lost homes and belongings in the earthquake that struck parts of Balochistan province on Wednesday.
Intro: I don’t know what’s going on all of a sudden in India, but a lot of the mass violence over the past couple of days seems to be concentrated in the northeastern part of the country.
“Mobs barged into a railway station in the eastern Indian state of Bihar Wednesday and set two passenger cars on fire to retaliate against alleged attacks on Biharis in another state, police said.
Police arrested a dozen people, said Amit Kumar, senior superintendent of police of in Bihar’s capital, Patna.
The train was on its way to the capital from the neighboring state of Jharkhand when protesters, mostly students, set two of its cars on fire after the train stopped at a railway station, Kumar added.
The attackers were protesting alleged assaults on Bihar natives in the western state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital, Mumbai, he said
For months, a local politician in Maharashtra has railed against natives of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, saying they have been coming to his state and taking jobs that should rightfully go to Maharashtrians.
The politician, Raj Thackeray, heads the nationalist Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which promotes the use of Marathi language and culture.
His firebrand speeches have sometimes incited followers to attack migrant workers, mostly cab drivers, in Mumbai…”
“At least 15 people were killed and 15 were hurt Tuesday when a bomb ripped through a village in India’s northeastern state of Manipur, the authorities said.
Tending to the injured
The explosives were planted on two-wheeled vehicles when they exploded near a police training complex in the village of Pandol Kabui, outside of Manipur’s state capital Imphal, Y. Joykumar, director-general of police, told CNN.
The bomb detonated at 7:20 p.m. (2:20 p.m. GMT), police said.
“The scene is ghastly. Limbs and other body parts are strewn all over the place,” local television reporter Sarat Chandra told The Associated Press…”
“The death toll rose from nine blasts in a remote state in India rose Friday to 67, an official in the state of Assam told CNN.
The blasts ripped nearly simultaneously through crowded areas of the state on Thursday, killing 67 and wounding another 367.
Assam Home Commissioner Rajiv Kumar Bora said other small blasts occurred in the northeastern state in addition to the nine bombs; authorities believe those may be from kitchen gas cylinders, he said.
Following the explosions, black smoke poured into the air. On the ground, charred and burned vehicles, their windows punched out and their metal frames mangled, remained on the streets. Police officers combed areas afterward for unexploded bombs, authorities said.
No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, some of which police said occurred in the state capital, Guwahati, in Kamrup district. Other bombs exploded in the Kokrajhar, Barpeta and Bongaigaon districts, police said.
Bora named the United Liberation Front of Asom — a separatist group that has waged a 20-year rebellion demanding more autonomy from the central government — as a suspect in the attacks. ULFA denies wrongdoing, he said…”
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Tending to the injured
The explosives were planted on two-wheeled vehicles when they exploded near a police training complex in the village of Pandol Kabui, outside of Manipur’s state capital Imphal, Y. Joykumar, director-general of police, told CNN.
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