Are the American media presenting the anthrax scare in a sensationalized manner? Is the nation prepared to battle covert biological warfare that may result in mass casualty? How do healthcare organizations across the country plan to react to the ethical issue of treating anthrax victims?
These questions and more on current biomedical issues will be answered today at a talk by C.J. McDermott, a military-trained expert in biological warfare defense and a physician at Desert Samaritan Medical Center.
The talk titled Bio-Warfare 101 will be held at 10:30 a.m. in Computing Commons, Room 120.
The talk is being hosted by the Social Workers of Social Justice, a group of students from the School of Social Work who formed the group after the Sept. 11 attacks. Its members feel that the media have done little to bring an international perspective to the current situation.
Ashley Basson, a social work senior and one of the organizers of the group, said, "Even though the American media has done a great job in presenting accurate information on the people who lost their lives on Sept. 11 and their families, we feel that they there is hardly any international coverage.
"That stops people from thinking and seeing things clearly in a global context which is critical, " she added.
McDermott will discuss several different kinds of biological warfare agents being cited by the Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, and the physiological effects that they may cause.
Michael Yellowbird, an assistant professor of social work and the co-adviser for the Social Workers for Social Justice, said the talk would help give a balanced view of events spinning off from the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The media started equating anthrax to terrorism from the beginning without investigating all the sources and there was no mention of who the agents for the terror are and how the substance was moving from place to place," he said. "It may easily turn out to be an American home-based terror and that needs to be investigated."
McDermott will be talking about American healthcare, organizations that are prepared for emergency biomedical cases, but are not prepared to battle an influx of mass casualty in cases of anthrax or any of the other agents like ebola or smallpox.
"A city like Phoenix just does not have the capacity to deal with it. 600 to 700 cases will completely overwhelm the medical facilities here," McDermott said.
Reach Vedatrayee C. Banerjee at
ctitam@hotmail.com.
