NJCPHP News PHlash
AUGUST 27 - SEPTEMBER 17, 2010
THE NEW JERSEY CENTER FOR PUBLIC HEALTH PREPAREDNESS AT UMDNJ- SCHOOL OF
PUBLIC HEALTH
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. PREPAREDNESS NEWS
[1] Food-safety experts: Finding an outbreak's source not easy- USA Today
(8/26/10)
[2] Pharmaceutical Conservation Key to Slowing Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant
Infections- RWJF (9/7/10)
[3] Miami Airport Closed for Hours Amid Bioterrorism Fears- Global Security
Newswire (9/7/10)
[4] North Jersey health departments trying to avoid the chaos of last flu
season- The Record (9/12/10)
[5] Study: Friend 'sentinels' provide early flu warning- CIDRAP (9/16/10)
II. ANNOUNCEMENTS
[1] HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) Launches
new Public Health Emergency Portal
[2] “Population Behaviors in Dirty Bomb Attack Scenarios: A Survey of the
National Capital Region"
[3] Graduate Certificate in Transportation Management: Vulnerability, Risk
and Security
[4] Workgroups Develop Draft Competencies in Public Health Preparedness and
Response
[5] Accessible Emergency Information
[6] Essential Elements of Respiratory Protection
I. PREPAREDNESS NEWS
[1] Food-safety experts: Finding an outbreak's source not easy- USA Today
(8/26/10)
Government food-safety experts say they are in a tough spot when it comes to
publicly fingering a product or company in an outbreak such as the one
currently linked to a half-billion eggs distributed across the USA. "The
mantra is: You have to be fast and right. You can never be fast enough, and
you always have to be right," says Ian Williams, chief of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention's outbreak response branch. In 2008, the
tomato industry took a major financial hit when the Food and Drug
Administration and CDC linked their crop to a salmonella outbreak. Later,
tests instead found the outbreak bacteria in hot peppers, prompting an angry
industry backlash. Although two states had identified Wright County Egg
during the last week in July as a supplier to restaurants involved in eight
separate illness clusters, it took the FDA about 10 additional days to
inform the company it was a prime suspect. A recall wasn't announced until
Aug. 13. Jeff Farrar, FDA's associate commissioner for food protection, says
tracing outbreaks to their source is difficult work involving complex
distribution systems. Deciding when there's enough evidence to alert a
company or the public is a judgment call, he says. "This is where hindsight
and second-guessing come in," Farrar says. "We try to do the best we can."
http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/food/safety/2010-08-26-eggside26_ST_N.htm
[2] Pharmaceutical Conservation Key to Slowing Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant
Infections- RWJF (9/7/10)
The United States must focus on conserving the use of antibacterial drugs,
or face a public health crisis from rapidly rising rates of
antibiotic-resistant infections, according to a new analysis. Evidence
indicates that our nation’s supply of antibiotics is being depleted by
resistance, which occurs when infection-causing microbes mutate or change so
that they no longer respond to widely-used treatments. Most proposals to
solve this problem focus on giving pharmaceutical companies financial
incentives to develop new drugs that could replace those that are no longer
working. But a new report published in the September issue of Health Affairs
suggests that approach won’t work for long. New drugs will face microbial
foes that figure out how to evade treatment, say two medical policy experts.
“This is a war we cannot win unless we adopt a two-pronged strategy: one
that would boost the supply of new drugs and at the same time preserve the
ones we have left,” says Aaron Kesselheim, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., one of the
paper’s co-authors. He conducted the analysis of antibacterial drugs and
their impact on public health. The current pharmaceutical reimbursement
system gives companies an incentive to oversell antibiotics, says
Kesselheim. Companies that have spent large sums of money on research and
development for a new drug often seek to turn a profit on that product as
quickly as possible—before resistance sets in, he says. But the practice of
aggressively marketing antibiotics actually adds to the resistance problem,
says co-author Kevin Outterson, J.D., a professor at Boston University Law
School. Overselling and overuse create an environment in which microbes are
awash in antibiotics, which speeds the process of resistance, he says.
http://www.rwjf.org/newsroom/product.jsp?id=68368
[3] Miami Airport Closed for Hours Amid Bioterrorism Fears- Global Security
Newswire (9/7/10)
Authorities closed much of Miami International Airport and nearby hotels for
hours when a man attempting to carry a suspicious container through customs
was linked to a 2003 investigation over his handling of plague samples.
Former Texas Tech University professor Thomas Butler, 70, caught the
attention of a Transportation Security Administration officer at 9 p.m. at a
customs checkpoint. The inspector checked a database and found that Butler
had been charged previously with plague-related crimes. The airport was
evacuated and Butler was taken into custody for a short period. He provided
full cooperation and faces no charges in the incident, according to a law
enforcement source. An analysis of the container determined it contained no
dangerous material, a high-level police official said.
http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20100908_1841.php
[4] North Jersey health departments trying to avoid the chaos of last flu
season- The Record (9/12/10)
A normal flu season is under way in North Jersey with plenty of vaccines
available or expected soon, a far cry from the long lines and chaos that
erupted last year over scarce supplies of the swine flu vaccine. The
traditional flu shot has changed this year: One shot will now protect
against swine flu and two other types of influenza rather than a separate
vaccine for H1N1. For the first time, a stronger variation is available for
people age 65 and older. Also different this year, health officials are
advising everyone to get vaccinated, not just the elderly or those at high
risk. "We are recommending everyone over 6 months old get a flu shot this
year," said Dr. Susan Walsh, deputy commissioner of the New Jersey
Department of Health and Senior Services. "When you're trying to protect an
entire community, it makes no sense not to have as many people as possible
vaccinated." The new recommendation follows a panic-laced flu season last
year, when fears of H1N1 hit with a vengeance before vaccines were ready.
Many North Jersey residents spent weeknights and Saturdays lined up at local
schools, churches and malls trying to get inoculated. By the time the season
waned in the spring, 42 people had died in New Jersey, including four
children.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/health/102716529_Flu_vaccine_supply_more...
ntiful.html
[5] Study: Friend 'sentinels' provide early flu warning- CIDRAP (9/16/10)
Human "sensors" who are in the hubs of friend networks can detect flu
outbreaks at least 2 weeks earlier than surveillance systems that track, for
example, doctors' visits and may someday be a useful tool for identifying
other diseases and behaviors, researchers reported. The novel disease
detecting system depends on the "friendship paradox," a theory that friends
of given individuals are more popular than they are and are at the center of
social webs, where they not only learn of gossip, trends, and ideas sooner,
they may also be exposed to diseases earlier than those in more remote parts
of friend networks. The researchers, Dr Nicholas Christakis, professor of
medicine, medical sociology, and sociology at Harvard University and Dr
James Fowler, professor of medical genetics and political science at the
University of California , San Diego (UCSD), tested their friend network
disease detection system at Harvard University from Sep 1 through Dec 31
during the second wave of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Their findings appeared in
Public Library of Science (PLoS) One. They wrote that analyzing social
networks and monitoring the health of central members is an ideal way to
predict outbreaks, but detailed information doesn't exist for most groups,
and to produce it would be time-consuming and costly. Instead, they propose
asking a random group of people to name friends, and then monitor and
compare illness patterns in both groups. They emphasized that a person's
position in the friend network doesn't indicate the actual flu transmission
path, but it may serve as a proxy for an unobservable network of flu spread.
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/general/news/sep1610f...
ds.html
II. ANNOUNCEMENTS
[1] HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) Launches
new Public Health Emergency Portal
The new PHE.gov acts as a cross-governmental portal for residents in the
U.S. and worldwide to obtain information from all U.S. federal agencies and
their state and local partners involved in a public health emergency,
medical disaster or public health aspects of a natural or man-made disaster.
The site was created by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for
Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in conjunction with cross-governmental
partners to meet public information requirements of the Pandemic and All
Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006, Public Law No. 109-417 and National Health
Security Strategy (NHSS) objectives. Using this portal, visitors can find
the current status and actions taken by the federal government in preparing
for and responding to public health emergencies and medical disasters
<http://www.phe.gov/emergency/> . Links to report potential public health
threats, and information about medical response, emergency support functions
and medical services are also available along with public health actions
taken by the federal government during domestic and international
emergencies. In addition, visitors can learn about U.S. efforts to provide
basic and advanced research and development of medical countermeasures and
how these countermeasures will be used in response to public health
emergencies.
[2] “Population Behaviors in Dirty Bomb Attack Scenarios: A Survey of the
National Capital Region"
The survey “Population Behaviors in Dirty Bomb Attack Scenarios: A Survey of
the National Capital Region,” was commissioned by the Virginia Department of
Emergency Management from the University of Virginia Center for Survey
Research and the Center for Risk Management of Engineering Systems. The
survey explored how people get their information in an emergency,
information sources residents trust, the amount of advance preparation
people have completed, and the actions they would take under increasing
levels of personal threat. Most people surveyed would follow instructions to
stay where they are after a radiological dispersion device, or “dirty bomb,”
attack. The survey also indicated that if an evacuation were ordered, most
people would stay close to the region and not travel far. The survey and
results are available at
http://www.vaemergency.com/library/behavior_study/index.cfm.
[3] Graduate Certificate in Transportation Management: Vulnerability, Risk
and Security
The E. J Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University is now offering a Graduate Certificate in Transportation
Management: Vulnerability, Risk and Security. The Graduate Certificate
capitalizes on the strong academic foundation Rutgers offers in planning,
engineering, environmental science, social science and public health.
Designed to provide a multi-faceted foundation for future transportation and
management professionals, the program is administered by the Edward J.
Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy in cooperation with The
School of Engineering, the Graduate School New Brunswick, The University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) and the School of Environmental
and Biological Sciences. The certificate is open to matriculated graduate
students in any discipline. Students will be enrolled at the master's level
and receive the TRVS Certificate signifying completion of the program at
graduation. Under certain circumstances, advanced undergraduate students and
doctoral students may be admitted to the certificate program. For more
information, please visit:
http://www.policy.rutgers.edu/ctssr/projects/ts.php
[4] Workgroups Develop Draft Competencies in Public Health Preparedness and
Response
Subject matter experts have developed draft competencies for the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded Public Health Preparedness and
Response Competency Development Project.
http://www.asph.org/document.cfm?page=1081
[5] Accessible Emergency Information
A new website from the Northeast Texas Public Health District, is a
compilation of 18 Emergency Preparedness Topics. These topics and
information are formatted to be friendly to deaf, blind, and limited sight
populations. The information is in video and downloadable document format
for public use. There is No Charge for use of the materials posted on this
website. For more information, please visit:
http://www.accessibleemergencyinfo.com/
[6] Essential Elements of Respiratory Protection
Essential Elements of Respiratory Protection, a short guidebook listing 19
essential elements of respiratory protection for workers potentially exposed
to deleterious agents, such as hazardous wastes or agents of mass
destruction is available in print and PDF format. Learning objectives
include: Articulate the essential elements of an effective respiratory
program; identify and comprehend the basic personal respirators functional
categories; apply the essential elements to develop, implement or evaluate a
respiratory protection program; and recognize critical administrative,
medical, environmental, technical and regulatory requirements. The guidebook
presents the information in a graphical format which makes presentation and
absorption of material quicker and easier. We are pleased to provide a
complimentary copy of the booklet upon request (or use the order form on the
website.) An electronic PDF copy of the booklet be accessed at:
http://www.njcphp.org/index.php?q=njcphp_products
Email requests to: caporrco@umdnj.edu