|
Testimony Before
the Committee on Environment and Public Works United
States Senate |
Bioterrorism:
The Role of CDC and ATSDR in Remediating Contaminated Buildings Statement
of Patrick
J. Meehan, M.D. Director,
Division
of Emergency and Environmental Health Services, National
Center for Environmental Health, Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention Department
of Health and Human Services |
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Dr. Patrick Meehan, Director, Division of Emergency and
Environmental Health Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Thank you for the invitation to discuss CDC=s and HHS=s
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry=s (ATSDR) role in supporting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
in remediating anthrax-contaminated workplaces. My division includes CDC=s
National Pharmaceutical Stockpile (NPS) as well as coordination of emergency
preparedness and response activities under the Federal Response Plan.
Today, I will update you on the intentional release of
anthrax and the number of exposed and affected persons, as well as summarize
CDC and ATSDR's efforts to identify exposure, prevent anthrax disease, and
monitor the health of those known to be exposed. I will also discuss CDC and ATSDR's collaboration with the EPA to
assist in remediating contaminated buildings and protecting the health of
workers in those buildings.
I would like to begin by emphasizing the importance of
remediating all anthrax-contaminated worksites. CDC and ATSDR have worked, and will continue to work diligently along with EPA and our federal,
state, and local public health partners to help achieve this goal. Every worker in the United States deserves a
safe and healthy workplace. In the past
two months, terrorists have used anthrax spores to disrupt, displace, and even
infect American workers. One phase of
the fight against terrorism is to remediate contaminated workplaces and protect
the health and safety of American workers who need to return to their
jobs. We must also protect those
workers whose job it is to investigate and clean these work places. These are the people who have been on the
front lines of this battle, and they deserve our help and support.
As you are aware, many facilities in communities
around the country have received anthrax threat letters. Most were received as empty envelopes; some
have contained powdery substances.
However, in some cases, actual anthrax exposures have occurred. These cases have been identified in Florida,
New Jersey, New York, Washington, DC, and Connecticut. This is the first bioterrorism-related
anthrax attack in the United States, and the public health ramifications of
this attack continue to evolve. In
collaboration with state and local health and law enforcement officials, CDC,
ATSDR, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are continuing to conduct
health investigations related to
anthrax exposures. During this
heightened surveillance, cases of illness that may reasonably resemble symptoms
of anthrax have been thoroughly reviewed.
The public health and medical communities continue to be on a heightened
level of disease monitoring to ensure that any potential exposure is recognized
and that appropriate medical evaluations are given. This is an example of the disease monitoring system in action,
and that system is working.
The Department of Health and Human Services= (DHHS) anti-bioterrorism efforts are focused on
improving the nation's public health surveillance network to quickly detect and
identify the biological agent that has been released; strengthening the
capacities for medical response, especially at the local level; expanding the
stockpile of pharmaceuticals for use when needed; expanding research on disease
agents that might be released, rapid methods for identifying biological agents,
and improved treatments and vaccines; and regulating the shipment of hazardous
biological agents or toxins.
As the Nation=s
disease prevention and control agency, it is CDC=s responsibility on behalf of DHHS to provide national leadership in
the public health and medical communities in a concerted effort to detect,
diagnose, respond to, and prevent illnesses, including those that occur as a
result of a deliberate release of biological agents. This task is an integral part of CDC=s overall mission to monitor and protect the health of
the U.S. population.
Since the intentional release of anthrax spores, one
of the areas on which CDC and ATSDR have focused is the identification and
cleanup of contaminated facilities. We
have refined methods for environmental sampling to assess whether anthrax
contamination had occurred; in buildings that has meant sampling of air and
surfaces. CDC and ATSDR have issued
recommendations on how to conduct environmental sampling and how laboratories
should analyze those samples. We also
recommended environmental sampling strategies to characterize the extent of
exposure and to guide cleanup. We
issued recommendations to protect first responders, investigators, and cleanup
personnel. As buildings were identified
as contaminated, we provided technical input to EPA and others tasked with
cleanup to determine where remediation was necessary. These recommendations have been widely disseminated to federal,
state and local health and environmental agencies, and are available at CDC=s bioterrorism website (http://www.bt.cdc.gov).
EPA has devised strategies for remediation and has
gained much experience through its activities to date. Disease experts at CDC are developing
strategies to prevent the spread of disease during and after bioterrorist attacks. Although there are some data on chemical
disinfectants in the scientific literature, there are no historical data that
indicate the best way to eliminate spores from an office building, or to
disinfect a sorting machine. The
ability of a disinfectant to kill an anthrax spore is dependent upon time of contact and concentration and is
mitigated by the amount and composition of material through which it must
penetrate to get to the spore. For many
of the clean-up methods being used to kill anthrax spores, we will not know
their effectiveness until we go through the process. EPA understands this and has sought help from a variety of
sources, including CDC and ATSDR, to ensure that the appropriate indicators are
used and that post-sampling strategies are adequate.
With regard to the effectiveness of cleaning, even our
most exhaustive sampling strategies will not identify every spore. It is unlikely that any cleaning strategy
will kill every spore. However, the EPA
should be able to clean and re-test to the point where we all are comfortable
that spores have been killed or removed from surfaces where human contact is
likely to occur. A range of sampling
methods and strategies should be used
to ensure the safety of building occupants.
In heavily contaminated areas, such as Senator Daschle=s suite and the Brentwood postal facility, fumigation
is being proposed as the method of clean-up.
The use of fumigants is a potential hazard for clean-up workers, those
in areas adjacent to the buildings, and those that must re-occupy the
building. A fumigant that is effective
at killing spores is, of necessity, a highly toxic agent. The protection of workers during the
fumigation process is a matter of good industrial hygiene. EPA, CDC, and ATSDR are working together to
ensure remediation workers are protected during the fumigation processes. EPA works with local public health agencies
to ensure that people in the area but outside of the building being fumigated
are notified and kept at a safe distance.
With regard to the safety of those who will re-occupy
the building, it is important to determine both that the area is clear of the
fumigant and that there is no health risk.
Again, CDC, ATSDR, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) have developed exposure limits for fumigants, and detection methods are
available to determine when any residual fumigant is well below established
limits. After buildings are cleaned and
post-cleaning environmental sampling has been conducted, CDC and ATSDR are
committed to providing technical input to the incident command and other
experts to determine whether the building is ready for re-occupancy.
CDC has been addressing issues of detection,
epidemiologic investigation, diagnostics, and enhanced infrastructure and
communications as part of its overall bioterrorism preparedness
strategies. Based on federal, state,
and local response in the weeks following the events of September 11 and on recent
training experiences, CDC has learned valuable lessons and identified gaps that
exist in bioterrorism preparedness and response at federal, state, and local
levels. CDC will continue to work with
partners to address challenges such as improving coordination among other
federal agencies during a response and understanding the necessary relationship
needed between conducting a criminal investigation versus an epidemiologic case
investigation. These issues, as well as
overall preparedness planning at federal, state, and local levels, require additional
action to ensure that the nation is fully prepared to respond to acts of
biological and chemical terrorism.
In conclusion, CDC and ATSDR are committed to working
with other federal agencies and partners as well as state and local public
health departments to ensure the health and medical care of our citizens. We are committed to continuing our
partnership with EPA to ensure that the best public health information is
coupled with the best ideas for how to remediate contaminated facilities. We
need to improve sampling methods and equipment. We must learn from this experience and continue to assist the EPA
in determining the best ways to remediate different types of workplace
environments having different amounts of anthrax contamination.
Thank you very much for your attention. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.