In the wake of this week’s barbaric allegations of who has the biggest red button on their desk, Thursday’s alarm from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was more than a little on the nose.
With the growing likelihood of a real nuclear war between North Korea and the United States, the CDC is preparing to train health professionals and others on how public health would respond to a nuclear detonation.
The CDC has announced that it will organize a big round, a course, on this topic. The target group: physicians, nurses, epidemiologists, pharmacists, veterinarians, certified health education specialists, laboratory scientists and others. The event will take place on the 16th of January.
A spokesperson for the agency said the event has been planned for months as CDC officials participated last April in a radiation / nuclear incident exercise led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Kathy Harben said in an e-mail.
“The CDC participants felt that this would be a good way to discuss public health preparedness and share resources with states and other partners, and state and local partners have shown interest in the issue over time,” he said.
Nevertheless, the timing of the announcement was scary, right after the successive threats between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump.
“Join us in this grand rounds session to find out which public health programs at federal, state and local level are preparing for a nuclear detonation,” he urged the CDC e-mail to send people over to one of the the mailing lists of the agency. “Learn how the planning and preparation efforts for a nuclear detonation are similar and different to those of other emergency response measures.”
Almost every month, the CDC organizes large rounds on issues such as birth defects, tick-borne diseases, and sodium reduction. In March 2010, large rounds of preparation for radiological and nuclear disasters were offered.
The director of the CDC tells the staff “there are no forbidden words”, although the report does not refute
The titles of some of the discussions that will form the session are sufficient to pause, including “Prepare for the Unthinkable” and “Roadmap for the Preparation of Radiation”. Equally worrying is the picture of a cloud of cloudy mushrooms on the website announcing the event.
“While nuclear detonation is unlikely, it would have devastating consequences and limited time to take critical protective measures,” the agency said. “Despite the fear of such an event, planning and preparation can reduce deaths and illnesses.”
“For example, most people are unaware that on-site protection is critical for at least 24 hours to save lives and reduce radiation exposure, although federal, state, and local authorities will lead the effort Public health will play a key role in the response. ”
The event will be broadcast live from the CDC headquarters in Atlanta and released a few days later in the large round file page.