Overview of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Chemical Weapons Disposal Oversight Program

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 132-138
Author(s):  
Terry Tincher
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Facility Management ◽  
Chemical Warfare ◽  
Chemical Weapons ◽  
Warfare Agents ◽  
Centers For Disease Control ◽  
Public Health And Safety ◽  
The U.S

AbstractIn the early 1970s, the U.S. Congress mandated destruction of outdated chemical weapons. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is required by law to review plans for transportation and disposal of chemical warfare materials to ensure adequate protection of public health and safety. Plans must describe methods and facilities and include destruction schedules and facility management. CDC’s Chemical Weapons Elimination program protects “public health and safety by reviewing, advising, and making recommendations on the safe disposal and transportation of stockpile and non-stockpile chemical warfare agents.”As part of its oversight role, the program formed partnerships with agencies such as state health departments, local medical facilities, and state environmental departments. CDC provides guidance and expertise to address issues and concerns of officials and the public. CDC also works with local citizens’ advisory committees and federal agencies to address issues for workers and the local areas.Chemical warfare agents in the U.S. stockpile are destroyed by several methods, including incineration and chemical processing with caustic products. Technologies used to destroy recovered chemical warfare materiel include transportable treatment systems.The U.S. Army is a world leader in chemical weapons elimination. More than a decade of experience demonstrates that these weapons can be destroyed safely, without harm to destruction-facility employees, the community, or the environment. This portion of the article focuses on the history and challenges of systems that safely destroy chemical weapons and how they must be considered for plans to recover and destroy underwater chemical munitions.

Detecting explosives and chemical weapons: a review of recent developments

Sensor Review ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bogue
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Electrochemical Techniques ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Chemical Warfare Agents ◽  
Chemical Warfare ◽  
Optical Methods ◽  
Chemical Weapons ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Warfare Agents

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide details of recent developments in sensors for detecting explosives and chemical warfare agents. Design/methodology/approach – Following an introduction, this paper first discusses a selection of new sensing techniques aimed at detecting explosives and explosive devices. It then considers new developments in sensors for detecting chemical warfare agents. Brief concluding comments are drawn. Findings – This paper shows that a diversity of sensor technologies is being investigated, including various advanced optical methods, nanomaterials, microelectromechanical system, electronic noses, biosensors and electrochemical techniques, several of which offer levels of sensitivity in the parts-per-trillion region. These not only have the potential to yield improved devices for detecting explosives and chemical weapons but may also play a role in health care, environmental monitoring, drug detection and industrial health and safety. Originality/value – In an era of escalating terrorism and military conflicts, this provides a timely review of new technologies for detecting explosives and chemical warfare agents.

scholarly journals Presenting or Spinning Facts? Deconstructing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control Statement on the Importance of Reopening Schools Under COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Habib Benzian ◽  
Marilyn Johnston ◽  
Nicole Stauf ◽  
Richard Niederman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Word Choice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Centers For Disease Control ◽  
The U.S

Credible, reliable and consistent information to the public, as well as health professionals and decision makers, is crucial to help navigate uncertainty and risk in times of crisis and concern. Traditionally, information and health communications issued by respected and established government agencies have been regarded as factual, unbiased and credible. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is such an agency that addresses all aspects of health and public health on behalf of the U.S Government for the benefit of its citizens. In July 2020, the CDC issued guidelines on reopening schools which resulted in open criticism by the U.S. President and others, prompting a review and publication of revised guidelines together with a special “Statement on the Importance of Reopening Schools under COVID-19.” We hypothesize that this statement introduced bias with the intention to shift the public perception and media narrative in favor of reopening of schools. Using a mixed methods approach, including an online text analysis tool, we demonstrate that document title and structure, word frequencies, word choice, and website presentation did not provide a balanced account of the complexity and uncertainty surrounding school reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite available scientific guidance and practical evidence-based advice on how to manage infection risks when reopening schools, the CDC Statement was intentionally overriding possible parent and public health concerns. The CDC Statement provides an example of how political influence is exercised over the presentation of science in the context of a major pandemic. It was withdrawn by the CDC in November 2020.

Regulatory Perspective on Implementation of a Dose Standard for a One-Million Year Compliance Period

2006 ◽  
Vol 985 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy McCartin
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Performance Assessment ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Yucca Mountain ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
General Corrosion ◽  
Waste Package ◽  
License Application ◽  
Public Health And Safety ◽  
The U.S

AbstractThe disposal of high-level radioactive wastes in a potential geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada is governed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulations. The EPA has the responsibility for setting public health and safety and environmental standards for radioactive waste disposal at Yucca Mountain and it is the NRC's responsibility to implement those standards in its regulations to ensure public health and safety and the environment are protected. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), as the developer of the potential repository, must submit a license application to the NRC to seek approval to construct the repository. DOE must comply with NRC's regulations for NRC to authorize construction and license operation of a potential repository at Yucca Mountain. In 2005, EPA issued proposed revised standards and NRC issued proposed revised regulations for conducting performance assessment beyond 10,000 years up to 1 million years. The challenge for the EPA and NRC is to develop standards and regulations that provide an appropriate method for evaluating the safety of the potential repository given the unprecedented time period to be analyzed and the inherent uncertainties in estimating the future evolution of the Yucca Mountain site and the containment of the waste in the waste packages. A fundamental aspect of the proposed EPA standard is the specified approach for limiting undue speculation on future behavior of the site by constraining the features, events, and processes that need to be considered in the performance assessment. EPA proposed to limit the assessment of specific features, events, and processes in the period after 10,000 years to effects on the repository system that are most relevant (i.e., ignoring lesser or secondary effects that may add to speculation and uncertainties but would not be expected to have a significant effect on peak dose over a 1 million year period). For example, DOE's performance assessment may (1) limit the analysis of seismic activity to the effects caused by damage to the drifts and the waste package; (2) limit analysis of igneous activity to effects on the waste package that result in release of radionuclides to the atmosphere or ground water; (3) require DOE to include general corrosion in its analysis of engineered barrier performance, and (4) limit the effect of climate variation to those resulting from increased water flowing to the repository. NRC has been reviewing its performance assessment models and techniques to assure they are consistent with EPA's proposed requirements for the period after 10,000 years and adequate to assist the review of a potential license application from the DOE. Currently, only slight modifications to the models and approaches used in the performance assessment for the initial 10,000 years are expected to be needed to accommodate calculations for longer times (e.g., modifications to implement a steady-state value to represent the proposed climate change). NRC staff will be able to use the modified performance assessment to identify additional sensitivities associated with estimating doses over very long time periods and improve its understanding of the performance of a potential repository at Yucca Mountain.

scholarly journals Improving Probabilistic Infectious Disease Forecasting Through Coherence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Casey Gibson ◽  
Kelly R. Moran ◽  
Nicholas G. Reich ◽  
Dave Osthus
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Weighted Sum ◽  
Public Health Burden ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Centers For Disease Control ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Geographical Units

AbstractWith an estimated $10.4 billion in medical costs and 31.4 million outpatient visits each year, influenza poses a serious burden of disease in the United States. To provide insights and advance warning into the spread of influenza, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) runs a challenge for forecasting weighted influenza-like illness (wILI) at the national and regional level. Many models produce independent forecasts for each geographical unit, ignoring the constraint that the national wILI is a weighted sum of regional wILI, where the weights correspond to the population size of the region. We propose a novel algorithm that transforms a set of independent forecast distributions to obey this constraint, which we refer to as probabilistically coherent. Enforcing probabilistic coherence led to an increase in forecast skill for 90% of the models we tested over multiple flu seasons, highlighting the importance of respecting the forecasting system’s geographical hierarchy.Author SummarySeasonal influenza causes a significant public health burden nationwide. Accurate influenza forecasting may help public health officials allocate resources and plan responses to emerging outbreaks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports influenza data at multiple geographical units, including regionally and nationally, where the national data are by construction a weighted sum of the regional data. In an effort to improve influenza forecast accuracy across all models submitted to the CDC’s annual flu forecasting challenge, we examined the effect of imposing this geographical constraint on the set of independent forecasts, made publicly available by the CDC. We developed a novel method to transform forecast densities to obey the geographical constraint that respects the correlation structure between geographical units. This method showed consistent improvement across 90% of models and that held when stratified by targets and test seasons. Our method can be applied to other forecasting systems both within and outside an infectious disease context that have a geographical hierarchy.

A turn-on fluorescent probe based on N-(rhodamine-B)-thiolactam-2-n-butane with ionic liquids for selective and sensitive detection of mustard gas stimulant

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daxue Li ◽  
Hailing Xi ◽  
Shitong Han ◽  
Sanping Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Ionic Liquids ◽  
Rhodamine B ◽  
Sulfur Mustard ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Mustard Gas ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Warfare Agents ◽  
Public Health And Safety ◽  
Medical Countermeasures

Sulfur mustard (SM) is recognized as one of the most lethal warfare agents. It has the potential to seriously affect public health and safety. To employ appropriate medical countermeasures and...

scholarly journals Responder Safety, Tracking, and Resilience — Georgia, 2016 –2017

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Grippo ◽  
Laura Edison ◽  
Karl Soetebier ◽  
Cherie Drenzek
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Health Staff ◽  
Health Checks ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Centers For Disease Control ◽  
Health Districts ◽  
Hurricane Irma

ObjectiveTo better understand the importance of monitoring responders during public health emergencies and to learn how the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) developed and deployed an electronic responder monitoring tool.IntroductionDuring an emergency, the state of Georgia depends on public health staff and volunteers to respond. It is imperative that staff are safe before, during and after deployment. Emergency response workers must be protected from the hazardous conditions that disasters and other emergencies create1. In October 2016 and September 2017, Hurricanes Matthew and Irma caused widespread evacuation of Georgia residents, initiating a tremendous sheltering effort. Hundreds of public health responders were deployed to assist with sheltering and other aspects of the response. DPH rapidly developed a novel electronic Responder Safety, Tracking and Resilience module, which was used to track public health responders and monitor their health and safety while deployed.MethodsDPH rapidly developed a novel electronic Responder Safety, Tracking, and Resilience module (R-STaR), within the existing State Electronic Notifiable Disease Surveillance System to monitor the health and safety of responders. R-STaR was originally used during Hurricane Matthew, where it was launched the day of the storm, and was launched again four days before Hurricane Irma made landfall. Responders were emailed a web-based link to register, indicating demographic information, contact information, work location, subject area, vaccination status, and whether they considered themselves mentally and physically fit to deploy. Responders then received a daily email with a link to document their daily deployment location, duties, and whether they had any hazardous exposures, illness, or injuries while deployed. A post-deployment survey was sent to responders after Hurricane Matthew to solicit feedback about the responder safety module.ResultsDuring Hurricane Matthew, 128 responders representing 11 Georgia Public Health Districts registered in R-STaR. Seven responders reported illness or injury and were contacted to determine if medical services were needed; all remained healthy post-deployment. During Hurricane Irma, 1240 responders representing DPH and 16 Public Health Districts, and other employers, including law enforcement, fire, and education, registered in R-STaR. Of 472 responders completing daily health checks during their Irma deployment, 48 reported an injury, illness, or exposure, and were contacted to determine if services were needed. The daily health checks led to the identification of an outbreak of influenza in one of the shelters and resulted in vaccination or antiviral prophylaxis administration to 76 responders. Fifty responders to Hurricane Matthew completed the post-deployment survey; 95% found R-STaR easy to use, and 92% indicated that they liked being monitored. Supervisors indicated that the module could be used to: 1) roster and credential responders prior to an event; 2) track where responders are, monitor their health and safety during an event, and quantify the human resources deployed during a declared emergency; and, 3) to distribute post-response responder resources, monitor responder health, and gather information for after-action reports.ConclusionsR-STaR was widely used and well received despite being implemented with no prior training, with a dramatic increase in the number of responders registering from the first implementation in 2016 to the second implementation in September 2017. Monitoring responder health and safety is crucial to responding to and preventing outbreaks during a response, and ensuring responders get appropriate mental and physical support after a deployment. Lessons learned from both events will be used to create a just-in-time training curriculum, and develop a more robust R-STaR, which will enable responder rostering, credentialing, tracking and monitoring before, during, and after an event to ensure the health and safety of our responders as well as for future planning.References1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017). EMERGENCY RESPONDER HEALTH MONITORING AND SURVEILLANCE (ERHMS). Retrieved from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/erhms/default.html.

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