Homeland Security Watch

Comment by William R. Cumming

March 10, 2009 @ 11:07 am

GAO continues to “Get It” and keeps turning out quality reports. Does anyone in the Executive Branch read them? Hoping so and using them as a crutch to overcome some of that natural beaucratic passivity that passage of time and seniority seems to bring on.

I am still concerned that so few outside HHS and CDC seem to understand fully the threat and system to respond to that threat that HHS and CDC have been working on. Again little Congressional oversight of Public Health generally much less Pandemic/Flu issues. Let’s double the size of the public health service and strengthen epidemiology at the local level. This is basic stuff that US is looked to as leader when we are not. I would fund the 250 largest metropolis areas with a Public Health worker for each square mile of geography and/or each 25,000 in population. This is insurance that even AIG will need. The Stafford Act and the world of bioterrorism and pandemics/flu need intensive oversight and review.Then a coherent and constant funding stream needs to occur. Hey, it may be triage. Public Health funding before banker salary and bonus funding.

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March 20, 2009 @ 11:36 pm

[...] efforts. I’ve only seen the report mentioned in the blogosphere twice, and both times the authors noted that it wasn’t kind, or very complimentary, to the planning efforts thus far. And that was [...]