Staff public health departments with hundreds of operators available within an hour or so of a biological incident. These must be medical personnel, qualified to take a report and elicit approriate patient history.

Have public health respond with home visit immediately for those who fall ill.

Have police presence and investigative practices onsite immediately…interview witnesses, secure evidence.

Begin treatment immediately, support ongoing treatment for those exposed.

Provide follow-up care and monitoring of survivors. Recovering from a biological terror attack means recovering both from the illness and the terror attack. Many biological attacks, moreover, may be with multiple agents with differing incubation periods…. Prompt and continued care of those exposed is critically important.

Those who serve as PIOs must be briefed by epidemiologists or physicians familiar with the particular organism. After Bob Stevens became ill, local commentators announced for days that Bob got the anthrax from slogging in the swamp, or that the anthrax was a virus. Both comments may have prevented victims from seeking or receiving care.

Thanks for the forum. Management of bioterrorism emergencies is based on practical measures.

The general public may be afraid. Thejob of emergency management is to provide timely information, direct adequate response.