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Washington Watch | Issues Update | Health & Safety

Washington Watch

American Journal of Nursing - August, 2002 - Volume 102, Issue 8

New Law Funds Nursing’s Role in Bioterrorism Response
The ANA establishes the National Nurses Response Team.

By Christopher Donnellan

A new law provides funding to train health care professionals, including nurses, to prepare for and respond to bioterrorism. The Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Response Act of 2002, signed into law by President Bush on June 12, authorizes the spending of $4.3 billion to improve public health preparedness, enhance controls on deadly biological agents, and protect the nation’s food, medication, and drinking water supplies.

“The United States faces a grave and growing threat from bioterrorism. This legislation will improve our ability to respond to a bioterrorist attack,” noted Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), a physician who cosponsored the bill in the Senate with Ted Kennedy (D-MA).

Specifically, the law will address the three components needed to effectively combat bioterrorism: detection, treatment, and containment. The law authorizes more than $1.5 billion in grants to states, local governments, public health care facilities, and other entities to improve planning and preparedness activities, enhance laboratory capacity, educate and train health care personnel, and develop new drugs, therapies, and vaccines. Money is also allocated for hospital equipment and the training of health care workers, including nurses, to deal with bioterrorism.

“This law will ultimately empower communities and first responders across the country to be better equipped and trained,” said ANA president Barbara Blakeney, MS, RN, ANP. “Unless we invest substantially in bioterrorism preparedness, a major attack could overwhelm our hospitals, as well as state and local health agencies.”

The law also improves federal agencies’ abilities to respond to bioterrorism: $300 million has been authorized for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to upgrade and renovate its facilities to deal with public health threats. In addition, the law authorizes more than $1.15 billion for the secretary of health and human services to expand the nation’s current stockpiles of medicines and other supplies.

“This legislation requires the production of enough doses of smallpox vaccine to meet the needs of every American, so that the nation will be protected if our enemies ever unleash this ancient plague,” said Senator Kennedy.

To protect America’s food and drug supply, as well as to enhance agricultural security, the law allocates $545 million for the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to hire hundreds of new border inspectors, develop new methods of detecting contamination in foods, work with state food-safety regulators, and protect crops and livestock.

“Biological attacks can be carried out quietly, and health care professionals are likely to be the first to recognize that there has been an attack,” Bush stated at the signing ceremony. “The speed with which they detect and respond to a threat to public health will make the difference between containment and catastrophe.”

The ANA is ensuring nursing’s role in the nation’s preparedness by working with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish the National Nurses Response Team (NNRT). Unveiled at the ANA’s 2002 biennial convention in June, the NNRT will be dedicated to responding to a “presidentially declared disaster” by providing mass immunization or chemoprophylaxis to a population at risk. The NNRT will consist of a large cadre of nurses who would function under the auspices of the HHS and could be quickly deployed in response to a major national event, such as last fall’s anthrax attacks. The ANA is the conduit through which RNs will be recruited, while the HHS will process and screen applications and manage day-to-day operations. In cooperation with the HHS, the ANA also will provide ongoing education in disaster response during ANA meetings, online, and by other means.

When deployed, members of the NNRT would be “federalized,” thus receiving umbrella coverage for licensure and liability as well as a salary, travel and housing reimbursement, and per diem expenses during the duty period. The HHS will limit deployments to two weeks to minimize impact on employers. Employers would not be required to release NNRT members for deployment, but if RNs are released, employers are required to reemploy them after the duty period ends.

For more information on the NNRT, contact Cheryl Peterson at (202) 651-7089; cpeterso@ana.org.

Christopher Donnellan is an associate director of the ANA’s Department of Government Affairs.

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