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Medics receive a course in bioterror By BILL KETTLER Dr. Erich Weber delivered a grave message Thursday when he talked to his colleagues about biological terror weapons. "Terrorists want to kill you and spread disease," he said. "That goes 180 degrees against what we do every day." The Medford anesthesiologist told doctors how to recognize symptoms of anthrax, smallpox and plague; how to treat patients; and how to contact public-health and law-enforcement agencies that will become involved in the unlikely event that bioterrorism comes to Southern Oregon. Weber said distant episodes of bioterrorism should prompt local physicians to be mindful of the symptoms of anthrax, plague and smallpox when diagnosing patients. "We need to maintain an index of suspicion," he said to a 7 a.m. crowd of nearly 400 at Rogue Valley Medical Center's Smullin Center. "We all need to keep anthrax in the back of our mind." The Jackson County Medical Society organized Weber's presentation as part of its continuing medical education program. The presentation was opened to firefighters, police officers, nurses, hospital staff and emergency medical technicians to ensure they have the information they need if they have to respond to an episode of biological terrorism. "We felt like it was our responsibility to do this," said Debra McFadden, the medical society's executive director. "We invited over 2,000 people." Two additional invitation-only sessions are scheduled for next week, and a similar program will be offered in Josephine County the following week. Using video clips, slides and personal anecdotes from his career as an Army-trained physician, Weber explained biological warfare's long history and its modern resurgence. Assyrian armies poisoned their enemies' wells in the sixth century B.C., and a Tartar army spread plague by catapulting infected corpses into enemy forts in 1346. "We in Oregon have the honor, or the dishonor, to have had the largest bioterrorist event that ever happened in the United States," he said, recalling that followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh spread salmonella in restaurant salad bars in The Dalles and sickened as many as 700 people. Weber said the breakup of the Soviet Union probably allowed many lesser states to acquire biological weapons and the knowledge to manufacture them. Scientists and technicians who manufactured Soviet stockpiles of anthrax and other biological agents lost their jobs, and their services were available to the highest bidders. He said biological terror agents would most likely be used in large metropolitan areas where they could kill the most people and cause the most disruption. He spoke of a hypothetical exercise in which anthrax dispersed through a big-city subway system killed more than 42,000 people and sent 300,000 in search of medical care. "This is why I like Medford," he said. "We all need to thank goodness we live in a small community." Weber said each biological agent requires a specific response. Patients who might conceivably have been exposed to anthrax should shower thoroughly to remove any spores that might infect someone else. Patients diagnosed with highly communicable diseases such as smallpox and plague would have to be isolated to prevent the infection from spreading. He noted that smallpox patients used to be treated at home to prevent others from being infected. Physicians also learned about Jackson County's plan for responding to any outbreak of terrorism. "Everything will go through 911 dispatch," said Heather Freiheit, a nurse at Rogue Valley Medical Center and a member of Jackson County's bioterrorism committee. The committee, which meets weekly, includes representatives from hospitals, law-enforcement agencies, government and public-health officials. Freiheit said physicians who encounter a patient who might conceivably have anthrax or some other biologically induced disease should call 911, and emergency dispatchers will contact police, sheriff's deputies and FBI. Freiheit noted that federal recommendations for treating anthrax are changing as new information about the disease emerges. "We're getting 50 to 100 e-mails a day with updates," she said. "It's a very fluid thing right now," Weber said. "We're trying to figure things out. Some things have surprised even CDC (the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). We're in the shakeout period." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail bkettler@mailtribune.com |
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