Executive Order -- Medical Countermeasures Following a Biological Attack

WHITEHOUSE.gov ^ | December 30, 2009 | n/a

[Cindy]

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-medical-countermeasures-following-a-biological-attack

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The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release December 30, 2009 Executive Order -- Medical Countermeasures Following a Biological Attack

ESTABLISHING FEDERAL CAPABILITY FOR THE TIMELY PROVISION OF MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES FOLLOWING A BIOLOGICAL ATTACK

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to plan and prepare for the timely provision of medical countermeasures to the American people in the event of a biological attack in the United States through a rapid Federal response in coordination with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments.

This policy would seek to: (1) mitigate illness and prevent death; (2) sustain critical infrastructure; and (3) complement and supplement State, local, territorial, and tribal government medical countermeasure distribution capacity.

Sec. 2. United States Postal Service Delivery of Medical Countermeasures. (a) The U.S. Postal Service has the capacity for rapid residential delivery of medical countermeasures for self administration across all communities in the United States. The Federal Government shall pursue a national U.S. Postal Service medical countermeasures dispensing model to respond to a large-scale biological attack.

(b) The Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, in coordination with the U.S. Postal Service, within 180 days of the date of this order, shall establish a national U.S. Postal Service medical countermeasures dispensing model for U.S. cities to respond to a large-scale biological attack, with anthrax as the primary threat consideration.

(c) In support of the national U.S. Postal Service model, the Secretaries of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and Defense, and the Attorney General, in coordination with the U.S. Postal Service, and in consultation with State and local public health, emergency management, and law enforcement officials, within 180 days of the date of this order, shall develop an accompanying plan for supplementing local law enforcement personnel, as necessary and appropriate, with local Federal law enforcement, as well as other appropriate personnel, to escort U.S. Postal workers delivering medical countermeasures.

Sec. 3. Federal Rapid Response. (a) The Federal Government must develop the capacity to anticipate and immediately supplement the capabilities of affected jurisdictions to rapidly distribute medical countermeasures following a biological attack. Implementation of a Federal strategy to rapidly dispense medical countermeasures requires establishment of a Federal rapid response capability.

(b) The Secretaries of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, within 90 days of the date of this order, shall develop a concept of operations and establish requirements for a Federal rapid response to dispense medical countermeasures to an affected population following a large-scale biological attack.

Sec. 4. Continuity of Operations. (a) The Federal Government must establish mechanisms for the provision of medical countermeasures to personnel performing missionessential functions to ensure that mission-essential functions of Federal agencies continue to be performed following a biological attack.

(b) The Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, within 180 days of the date of this order, shall develop a plan for the provision of medical countermeasures to ensure that mission-essential functions of executive branch departments and agencies continue to be performed following a large-scale biological attack.

Sec. 5. General Provisions.

(a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) authority granted by law to a department or agency, or the head thereof; or (ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity, by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE, December 30, 2009.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Here’s another article about the same issue.

[driftdiver]

I’m trying to figure out what this means. Almost sounds like he’s creating a new bureaucracy within the US Post office.

On the surface using the post office to deliver medicine in the event of a biologic attack seems stupid.

[Dem Guard]

“United States Postal Service Delivery of Medical Countermeasures.”

Geez, having this “crack” government organization delivering meds after the government H1N1 team developes
the meds.........???? bwaaaaaaaaa

[Colonel Kangaroo]

But there’s np other organization in the country is better equipped to doliver something to every address in the nation than the USPS. It has its inefficiencies and failings, but on the whole they do their job well.

[wintertime]

Seems like an excellent idea to me. It keeps people indoors and not going to crowded centers where contagion is easily spread from person to person.

[driftdiver]

Does H1N1 qualify as a “large-scale biological attack” by the UN?

[Pontiac]

On the surface using the post office to deliver medicine in the event of a biologic attack seems stupid.

I think it would work fine as long as the drug can be self administered.

The post office has all of the transportation infrastructure and distribution personnel to collect and distribute the medicine. Mail order drugs are already delivered by the post office every day to millions of Americans.

What may be necessary is for Congress to pass laws that would permit the post office to suspend delivery of regular mail if required to permit the exclusive routing of the drugs.

Other laws may be needed to use the latest census data to determine the number of doses to be delivered to each residence.

[driftdiver]

The post office does a decent job despite being run by the govt. I prefer them for shipping packages as they are fast and cheap.

In this case there is a major biological attack serious enough to require distribution of medicine to everyone. You use an organization with zero medical training or experience to go house to house acting as a disease vector?

And then theres the idea of dispensing medicine to every person without any idea of their medical history, condition, or ability to properly dispense.

I would assume at this point actually taking the medicine is going to be mandated.

[Concho]

Exactly right. This is not about delivery of medicine, it is creating a reason to bail out the Post Office and make them into something that they arent now. Will Postal Workers begin packing guns?

[PowderMonkey]

"Your atropine is in the mail." Yep. I feel safer already...you've got to be kidding us. By the time any medical countermeasure arrives by mail, you'll be dead.

[Venturer]

Geez , this means that my neighbors who get my mail will now get my life saving medication. My mail peson never canread the name on the mail and I get their mail and they get mine.

Ben making complaints as have the neighbors for a year or more , but her feet appear to be in concrete

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

How utterly useless. A few useful facts about anthrax.

1) Ordinary anthrax is endemic to the soil of central North America, from Mexico through the central US, into Canada. Where there are cattle or where there used to have been buffalo, there is anthrax. In its spore form, it can live in the soil for at least 1000 years. The spores are hard to destroy, even in an autoclave.

2) Military grade anthrax is very rare. Only two countries, the US and Russia, were ever known to have produced it. Russia even had an accident while doing so, in the city of Sverdlovsk (formerly, and now again, Yekaterinburg), that killed a bunch of people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

Importantly, it was in a form, and released in just such a way as to maximize its effect just downwind (across the street) from where it was released.

3) This is critical, because anthrax spores are like many other powders. Unless you have an elaborate and sophisticated way of dispersing it, it will likely not travel very far in ways that will infect people. Compare it to a powder like baby powder. It can indeed spread far and wide, but the vast majority of it will “go to waste”.

[Concho]

Or, this enables them to collect more information on citizens than they can now.

Also, I ask myself, what can this have to do with this Health care fiasco?

[w4women]

I still think it is strange that Obama, Biden and Polosi are out of the country at the same time. I don’t trust anything this president does by executive order. The timing is weird and I wonder what kind of briefing he recently got.

[earlJam]

This will never happen.

Sounds way too much like the New Orleans’ plan for school bus drivers to evacuate residents. In case of a flood.

We all remember how well that worked.

[driftdiver]

Everything they do is about power and money. Protecting Americans is a very distant concern.

[Erik Latranyi]

"Your atropine is in the mail."

Atropine is not the treatment for an anthrax attack.

Atropine is typically used to treat victims of a nerve-gas attack. You would not send postal workers into an area that suffered a recent gas attack.

Cipro is used to treat anthrax. Anthrax is not contagious, so there is little need to quarrantine the victims. Using the postal service to distribute Cipro is OK if you need massive distribution to a large area after an attack.

Small pox requires a vaccine administered by a forked needle before infection. The vaccine and needles were produced and stockpiled by the US government after 9/11. The vaccine should be administered by a doctor because dosage is critical. You should not use the postal service to deliver a vaccine. There is no treatment for smallpox, although it is contagious.

Potassium Iodide is used after a radiological attack to protect the thyroid. Postal workers will not be sent into an area that is radiologically "hot" to distribute potassium iodide.

Therefore, I see very little benefit coming from enlisting the Postal Service as a distributor of goods after an attack. That is the role of FEMA in coordination with State and Local governments.

Bottom line: Something is fishy in Denmark

[ASA Vet]

You would not send postal workers into an area that suffered a recent gas attack.

Many FR posters would.
They hate USPS more than the goverment agency, (IRS,) which acually can take their money at gunpoint.

[ASA Vet]

You would not send postal workers into an area that suffered a recent gas attack.

Many FR posters would.
They hate USPS more than the government agency, (IRS,) which actually can take their money at gunpoint.