[ RadSafe ] " Homeland Security Chief Sees Nuclear ForensicOffice as Attack Deterrent "

[Conklin, Al (DOH)]

We've seen that exact problem in Washington (state). During the TOPOFF
II dirty bomb exercise in Seattle in 2003, fear, inadequate instruments
and a lack of understanding of radiation caused 115 "trauma" victims to
die because they didn't receive emergency medical care in a reasonable
time. For the most part, instruments have been taken care of, but the
first responders, particularly fire and rescue and law enforcement,
don't know how to use them and/or don't know what the data means.

We put together a radiological outreach program to start offering
training in basic radiation, instrument use, protective actions,
handling contaminated patients, etc. to supplement the excellent
training offered by REAC/TS and other places. The problem is that these
agencies can't always afford to lose their staff for a week at a time to
go out of state, so we can do something during a single shift (at no
cost to them, except their time), or bring tem to a central location in
state for training. Whenever we can, we use real radioactive materials
so they get real practice finding and identifying isotopes (multiple
sealed sources plus, when we can, Tc-99m for contamination control
practice).

It's very popular training, and we've trained about 4500 in the last
four years. Unfortunately, that only represents about 5% of those who
need it.

Allen W. Conklin
Senior Health Physicist and
Lead trainer
Radiological Emergency Preparedness Section
Office of Radiation Protection
Department of Health
Olympia WA. 98504-7827
(360) 236-3261

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
Behalf Of MikeNukeEP at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 11:28 PM
To: Radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] " Homeland Security Chief Sees Nuclear
ForensicOffice as Attack Deterrent "

Millions for prevention; pennies for consequence management. Homeland 
Security still doesn't get it.   No one would argue that preventing
radiological 
terrorism is a desirable objective, but since 9/11 a disproportionate
amount of money and emphasis has been put on elaborate but only
marginally effective intelligence networks, catching the bad guys, and
intercepting the hazardous 
material.   Meanwhile, little or no effort has been made to ensure that
the nation's 
"first responders" are adequately trained and equipped to address the 
immediate consequences of a radiological incident.   I'm sure law
enforcement is 
pleased that Homeland Security will be able to identify the source of
the 
radiological component and quickly target the perpetrators.   But who's
looking at how 
the victims will be handled?   The injuries and/or exposures sustained
by 
dozens, hundreds, or even more people will need to be addressed by
largely untrained and ill-equipped medical service providers;
contaminated environments will need to be evaluated and remediated; and
the economic affects will be 
devastating.   These activities will not be conducted by the police and
fire agencies 
that are focused on prevention strategies.   No plan or process is
perfect, 
and   DHS needs to recognize that detection and prevention is laudable
if it 
works, but consequence management capabilities at the state and local
level become paramont when prevention fails. So far there's little
indication that DHS accepts that reality. Remember Katrina!
Mike Sinclair, Graystone Radiologiucal Emergency Management



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