# 1696
The following headlines, all for basically the same story about the release of the CDC's Report on the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement - all carry a different slant.
Is the preparedness glass half full or half empty?
Report: States, cities more ready for health crises since 9/11 but work needed The Santa Rosa Press Democrat, California 11:33
Is U.S. prepared for terrorism, epidemics? The News & Observer, North Carolina 08:15
'A' for effort, but big public-health work remains Winston-Salem Journal, Carolina 06:27
US deemed unready for health crisis Boston.com 07:01
From the AP reporting on this story, the following:
US deemed unready for health crisis
CDC sees much to do, but lauds 6 years of effort
By Mike Stobbe
Associated Press / February 21, 2008
ATLANTA - In the first report of its kind, US health officials said the nation's cities and states made a strong effort to prepare for a flu pandemic, bioterrorism, or other emergency health crises, but big challenges remain.
"I think in terms of effort and progress, an 'A,' " Dr. Richard Besser of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said when asked to assign a letter grade. "In terms of amount of work to be done, I would say that's absolutely enormous."
It was the government's first assessment of the payoff from its investment of more than $5 billion since the terrorist attacks of 2001 to make the country better prepared for a variety of public health emergencies.
The report looked at staffing, laboratory capability, and other resources of state, local, and territorial health departments for handling bioterrorism or other disasters.
The number of state and local health departments able to detect biological agents grew to 110 in 2007, up from 83 in 2002. Labs able to detect chemical agents increased to 47, from zero in 2001, the CDC found.
All states are now doing year-round flu surveillance - an important measure if the bird flu virus in Asia mutates into a more dangerous form easily spread among people, unleashing a worldwide epidemic.
Information-sharing between labs and public health professionals has grown tremendously. And the count of illness-investigating epidemiologists assigned to emergency response rose to 232 in 2006, from 115 in 2001.
"Clearly we are better able to handle most public health events in this country today than we were in 2001, and that's very good news," said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Minnesota.
The news wasn't all good, of course.
Budget cuts, a lack of qualified personnel, inadequate labs, and computers that don't always talk to one another are just a few of the problems facing a unified public health response to a crisis such as a pandemic.
The remark by Dr. Richard Besser of the CDC; that there is an "absolutely enormous amount of work left to be done" is no overstatement.
In fairness, though, the above headline is a bit disingenuous. You can never truly be ready for a public health crisis. There is always something more that could, or should have been done in advance.
But it is something to shoot for.
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