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NY grapples with mass medication distribution

Emergency Management Alert, February 15, 2005

New York City is still determining how to deliver medicine to thousands of people within 48 hours of a terrorist attack, the New York Times reported last week.

The end of a federal pilot program to answer the problem raised many different ideas. However, emergency planners say most strategies have some kind of drawback.

Among some of the ideas include using postal workers to distribute medicine or homecare health aides to volunteer giving out drugs, and even suggestions of a drive-through window distribution at banks.

With each suggestion come concerns about potential civil unrest and communication constraints, as well as reliability of delivery, especially if using volunteers and people with no medical training.

"New York City has learned a lot since September 11 2001, attacks, and in many ways it's way ahead of the curve in terms of readiness," Shelley A. Hearne, MD, the executive director of the Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit group based in Washington, told the Times. "But the planning for actually delivering medicines and food to individuals is at a surprisingly rudimentary level."

Federal officials have been pressuring New York and the 20 other cities in the program to begin preparing a plan for delivering medicine door-to-door to thousands of people in less than two days.

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