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Statewide Address on Biological Threat Safety - October 14, 2001 - Transcript
Commissioner D. O. Helmick
Greetings. As you know the California Highway Patrol has the authority and responsibility to protect all state employees in buildings. This is a responsibility that we take very seriously, and therefore, at the request of Governor Gray Davis, we have been provided training to all state employees outlining the necessary precautions and procedures to take for any possible biological or chemical threat.
We have developed this tape for those of you who have not been able to attend any of our statewide training, and ensure you are equally informed and prepared. The basic purpose of this tape is twofold: First, to educate those unfamiliar with the subject material; and secondly, to assure you the CHP is taking an active roll in protecting all state employees and facilities as well as ensuring you know what to do.
Officer Vince Curry
Good Afternoon. I would like to thank everyone for coming today. What we are going to talk about today is the events that have taken place recently concerning terrorist attacks and those biological agents. My name is Officer Vince Curry. I am with the California Highway Patrol Hazardous Materials and Biological Training Unit. I have been asked to come here and talk to you about these events.
A little bit about the Highway Patrol - the Highway Patrol has already programs in effect to handle both biological and chemical events. Our hazardous materials response teams have been trained in this type of thing for many years, and this is something we have been training for. It is something that has come into the public eye and we are more than ready for this. We have trained, some say we have over-trained for it, but we would rather be prepared than not.
Little bit of background on why the Highway Patrol is getting so involved. Government Code states that the Highway Patrol will be responsible in providing service and developing programs to deal with situations resulting in the harm of either state property, protection of state property, protection of state employees - being you. And that is why we are here today. We are here today to dispel some of the myths, some of the rumors that some of you have heard, and just to let you know that life is pretty good, and that there is nothing to really worry about.
Getting on to it - I am going to tell you a little bit about micro-organisms. I am not going to get into an entire lab-type conference with you about it, but it is interesting stuff, and its been around for a long time. It's been around since the beginning. It's when it was used in weapons of war it becomes real interesting. Bacteria can be traced back to biological warfare only back to the 14th Century. Warring armies in the Ukraine that would take disease-infected cadavers, they would lob them into enemy camps and then they would leave and then let the bacteria take over and kill out the camps. Possibly our first drive-by ever recorded - could be - don't know - don't quote me on that, but sounds good. Another time, 1700's, officers of European nations used to take blankets from smallpox infirmaries and give them to the warring Indians just so they could infect the Indian tribes and bring them to smaller numbers, so that they could be defeated. Micro-biology, micro-organisms, biological warfare, long history, as we have already seen, it goes way back, but the problem that they have all had is that it is not a successful weapon. It does not succeed where others succeed at. You take just a standard bullet, take an explosive. These are far more effective. These are far more cost effective. Many of the people that try to produce these biological agents end up killing themselves in their own labs, in their own little makeshift ways. Those of us in law enforcement, we are used to seeing meth lab problems. Look at how many of these people cooking meth end up blowing themselves up in their own labs. Same situation. Very hard to implement it as a weapon. Very hard to successfully implement it as a weapon. Because of that, people have not gone to it as their primary weapon. So, though it has a long history, and it has some really unique milestones along the way, it has not been a successful weapon, and because of that, you are really not going to see it ever really used as a successful weapon.
The world as we know it today is a complex world. I mean, it is full of everything. Everything from the best to the worst, and when you talk the worst, we are talking about people that don't always agree with what our great nation agrees with, what our allies agree with, what the state agrees with. It can be either a terrorist cell or it can be a whole nation, but we have to keep vigilant in watching out for our interests. And in doing so, we sometimes upset other countries, other cells, other organizations, and whether that be through religion, rather than be through ideological or political beliefs, everybody's got a different view on things and a lot of people don't like our views period. Yes, we are the superpower, we are the United States, and a lot of people depending upon what their motivation is, or their motive for bringing their terror to us are jealous and that is the kind of world we live in today.
What we are going to talk about is probably the party subject that is currently going on right now, and that is Anthrax. Anthrax has been around for a long time. It has been played with successfully and unsuccessfully, more the latter. I would love to show you 42 other really nasty viruses and bacteria that I have pictures of and case studies on, but they are really not going to be seen in this country. You are never going to see it. They are mostly held to undeveloped nations, places where dysentery and infections is really high, but because Anthrax is in the media right now, because it is a heightened thing on public awareness, we are going to talk to you a little bit about Anthrax today. Anthrax, what is it? What is Anthrax? It is a bacteria. A bacteria just like the common cold, just like the common flu, and because it is just like that, we are able to treat it just like that. As far as some precaution measures - we are always yelling at our children, "Don't put your hands in your mouth; don't touch your face;" you know, "Wash your hands with soap; make sure you stay clean." We are talking about hygiene. Common hygiene. I mean, more people contract the flu or cold from touching doorknobs or touching a telephone, or touching something that somebody already had the flu or cold and then touching their face or touching their mouth, or rubbing their eyes. If we can just practice some safe and clean hygiene, you know what, we are going to beat just about any micro-organism, and Anthrax is kind of the same way. As long as we practice good hygiene and cleanliness and things like that, we are not going to have any problems.
How common is Anthrax, and who can get it? Well, it is not going to be common in the United States. In the last 10 years, outside of this last week, we have only seen two cases of Anthrax in the United States. I am happy to report California has never seen a case of Anthrax. We have received hoaxes, and we get hoaxes all the time about Anthrax, and we respond to them and we handle them just like a real case, but there has never been a case of Anthrax in the state of California. That could be because of our checks and balances that are in place. That could be because of the training that we go through and some of the other programs that we have that back us up. As far as who can get it, people who usually work with animal products, and these are usually in countries that don't have a really good veterinarian type system, or that don't have really good animal control. Once again, we are talking about a developing nation. People that really don't have any kind of checks and balances in place. We use the animal control system to regulate this. The United States has THE BEST animal control system there is. California is on top of it in the United States. We are the best in the United States, thus, it makes us probably the best in the world, here in this state. And because of that, because of that checks and balance system that we have in there, and everything else, like I have said before, we have still have never had a case of Anthrax here in the state of California. As far as who can get it, we are talking about the animal handlers and stuff like that. Handlers of contaminated animals. Anthrax is mostly found in animal product - in contaminated cows and sheep, goats, and it's usually the people that handle those are going to be the people that you see it the most in.
How is Anthrax transmitted? There is three separate ways it can be transmitted. It can be transmitted cutaneously, through the skin, through cuts, sores, any open lesions, stuff like that. It is when it gets in through that, through the skin. It can also be transmitted through the gastrointestinal tract which is ingestion, eating some contaminated meat. Once again, we have great animal control so you are not probably never going to see contaminated meat here in the United States or contaminated product. Or inhalation. Inhalation being one of the top subjects right now because everybody is worried about opening letters and having white powder in the air and stuff like that. Inhalation, though it's probably the worst form you can get it, it's still treatable. If you are exposed, we can treat it and get it taken care of. As far as cutaneously, on your hands, on your arms, stuff like that. As you use good hygiene, once again, I am going to reemphasize washing your hands - hot water and soap, use an alcohol-based gel, or any kind of bleach-based wipe that is commercially available. Disinfecting things. Don't have to go overboard, but you know, if we just modify our routine a little bit, we can beat this, and you will beat the common cold, you will beat the flu. You will live a healthier life, actually.
Question comes up - "Should we wear gloves?" If you are working in a mailroom, and many of you are working in mailrooms, and you are touching a lot of packages, think about gloves - not just because of the Anthrax, but think about the gloves because of what you are touching every day. These mail packages have been dragged through the mud, they have been kicked across warehouse floors, they have been dragged through airports, thrown on planes, thrown on the back of the trucks, and then delivered to you by someone who could have a flu, who could have a cold, who has been wiping his nose, and touching these packages. Just for the nasty nature of these packages, you need to think about an extra line of protection. Now, sure, if you don't touch your face or anything else, and you wash vigilantly, throughout the day of handling these things, that is going to take care of it, but if you want that extra level of protection, there is no reason why not to use gloves. If you want to use a surgical latex glove, which is what we issue to our EMTs and paramedics in the field to use, that is great. You don those, you work it all day long. If you end up compromising the integrity of the glove at all, or you feel that they are wearing thin, change out your gloves. If you want to get in the habit of just changing them out every 15 minutes, 20 minutes, go ahead and do so. There is no real guidelines, and we are not going to mandate that you wear gloves, but we are saying for that extra bit of protection, not just because of Anthrax, but how nasty a lot of this mail is, you might want to consider wearing it, and that will take care of any cutaneous problems.
Ingestion, really short, we don't have any problems with ingested-type Anthrax. Of course, California has zero Anthrax cases, but in the United States, ingestion is so uncommon that it will probably never be broadcast on the news. You will probably never hear about it. So that takes us to inhalation. Inhalation is the number one topic right now. Inhalation does carry some different types of risks, some different types of precautions, and we are going to talk a little bit about those precautions today. What you need to understand is that in these envelopes, or in these packages, the reason they keep hearing this white powder, or they keep using this white powder or any kind of powder, is Anthrax - being bacteria - being a spore, has no wings. I mean, it can't just up and fly on its own. It needs a delivery device, it needs a delivery vehicle to actually put it into the air, and put it into the air in a strong enough dose to where you are going to be able to breath it in and become infected. And what they do is find a lighter than air, or a light-as-air powder. A talc powder, flour. Anything that will suspend it in the air long enough for somebody to walk through it, and that is why you are seeing this white powder. The powder - it [isn't] the Anthrax, it's a delivery vehicle for the Anthrax to be placed into the air, but like all hazardous materials scenes that we deal with, and with biological scenes, if it's in a powder, or it's in something that is in lighter than air, it's eventually going to settle, and it will come down to the ground. So exposure, after awhile, will go away. You are wondering probably, well you know, once it is in the air and I breath it, what should I do? Don't panic. This stuff does not kill you on the spot. This isn't some like some lethal nerve agent that is going to incapacitate you, but you do need to follow some simple steps. Some of the simple steps that we have in place follow what we teach our first responders in our hazardous material incident commanders and that is the acronym, SIN. SIN is safety, isolation, and notification. Okay, we need to be safe first off. Let's be calm, and lets take care of this whole thing. If you do have a package and it has white powder or something suspicious, you need to place it and leave it. You need to back away. Now we need to isolate. Let's isolate the area, let's make notification to those that we need to. Keep our employees, our fellow employees out of the area, and make notification, be it 9-1-1 or anything else, and we will get the right people going. I will show up in my moonsuit, along with my crew, and we will have the Department of Health out there. We will get the fire department to come out and give you a free shower, and we will have the medical people take a look at you and see if you actually have anything to be worried about. But we are here to take care of the situation, and most important, we are here to protect you and take care of you, and that is what we are tasked with, that is our job, and that is what we train for. So as far as remembering something, let's remember SIN, safety, isolation, and notification, and let's follow it, and what we are talking about a lot of times is straight common sense. You are not going to throw the package up in the air. You are not going to take this package over to your friend's desk and say, "Hey, what do you think this is?" If it's unusual, if it's suspicious, if it's something out of the ordinary, [it] probably is and you need to deal with that. Many of you have already had the departmental bomb training or the state's bomb training if you are handling packages. We are going to parallel that and how we handle some of this stuff. If the package feels funny, if it looks funny. If it has too much postage from one destination to another. If it's got no return address. If it's from a country that maybe we don't have the best relations from. These are things that you need to consider being suspicious. You do your job every day, you are professionals in what you do, and we ask that you use that experience. Use your eyes and your senses to look for the suspicious. We are asking you just to turn that up a little bit. We are not asking for life-saving or life-changing type things, but by turning it up, you may be able to save a life, may be able to save somebody's health, may be able to thwart something before it actually takes place. We are asking all the eyes of the state to help us out, be vigilant, refrain from any kind of complacency in this type of matter.
As far as the preferred delivery method that the terrorists are using. And once again, I will emphasize "terrorist," because they want to inflict terror. And in light of what has happened, there has been quite a lot of terror and once again we are here to just kind of let you know a little bit about this, and maybe it will calm you down a little bit. And delivery methods, we have discussed about the white envelopes and the powders and stuff, but we have to get this in the air. So a lot of times it will be in an aerosol can, or a pressurized pipe, or some other means of getting it into the air and keeping it in the air long enough for somebody to breathe. And even in that state, everything has to be right - the conditions have to be right, the strain has to be right, the strain has to be the right proportion, the bacteria have to be the right size, the spores have to be the right condition. If none of these things take place, well then, we have an unstable micro-organism and possibly not even an effective one. So there is a lot of variables along the way in this package being mailed to you that it may not even show up and be effective. And once again, I am going to emphasize that California has never seen a case of Anthrax. A lot of hoaxes. Ninety-nine percent of anything in the United States has ended up being a hoax. One hundred percent of California has been a hoax. Remember that, calm down a little bit and you can make it though this. Remember hygiene. I can't stress that enough - hygiene.
Questions come up before, of, can Anthrax be spread person to person? If you come down with Anthrax, or somebody comes down with Anthrax, you can not get it from another person. That is just not how it works - that is not the way this kind of micro-organism is. And it just won't happen. So as far as that is concerned, don't worry about it. Treatments - there are already treatments out there. If you do feel you have been exposed, then let's get you treated. Simple antibiotics. There are several different antibiotics out there they can use. Military even vaccinate their troops against Anthrax just in case. But there are treatments. We can treat all three forms: cutaneous, gastrointestinal, and inhalation. But you need to get treated. If you feel that you have been exposed to something suspicious, and we will parallel the bomb training that you have had before, then let's get you checked out, get you treated. Some of the things outside of the surgical gloves that you need to possibly think about is that if you are in a contaminated area, avoid smoking, drinking, or eating until you have been checked out, or at least until you have cleaned up. There is no reason for you to move out to a clean area from a contaminated area just to turn around and put your hands on your face. That defeats the whole reason of leaving the contaminated area. So remember, no smoking, drinking, or eating until you have gotten that whole situation taken care of. And once again, wash thoroughly, remember hygiene. Hygiene is everything. Hygiene will beat this thing almost every time as well as everything else that you encounter. And as far as your workplace, the place in which you work, the area in which you work. Need you to be more vigilant in that area too.
And look for suspicious things, some tell-tale signs that something is not right. If you see or smell weird odors or see your coworkers all of a sudden developing rashes. Okay, maybe we have a biological problem going on there, not necessarily Anthrax, but something else, and we need to make the right notifications. How about unusual stains or discolorations? People say - well, Anthrax, I thought, was clear, or most things are invisible. How am I going to tell? Well, they actually in their delivery method will have a stain. If I took my pepper spray out from its container, it is a chemical agent. If I sprayed it on the wall, it is going to leave a stain. That is something you don't see everyday when you come to work. So maybe it's suspicious. Let's act on our suspicions. Let's call the right people. Let's get us in there, and we will get it checked out for you. Also, the onset of people who are sick, and I am not talking about the employees who use their allotted sick leave at the beginning of each month. I am talking about the person who maybe never calls in sick. Or maybe the two or three people that are sitting right next to each other all of a sudden are becoming sick or overwhelmed with something. We need to think about our SIN acronym - our safety, isolation, and notification. And react to it, and let's get the right people in and let's get everybody treated and taken care of, so we can go about our normal routines.
Watch for unauthorized people. Most of us work in state buildings where ID cards are required, or some kind of special code is needed to get through a door. Look for the people who are not supposed to be there. Let's get into a habit of challenging those that we don't know. Let's make notification to the Highway Patrol or to the local law enforcement agency. Get somebody out there to find out who this person is, and let's get them checked out as well. A really good example of that is the suspicious sprayings from the bug man. We all have the bug man who shows up the third Thursday of each month to spray for cockroaches or anything else, crickets and stuff like that. All of a sudden the bug man is showing up four or five times a week. Well that is a bit suspicious. And if he is not scheduled to be there, we need to get the right authorities out there to ask him why he is there and get that all checked out. But once again, and I am going to refer to the SIN acronym - limit your time, limit your exposure. You will do real well, remove yourself from the problem. Let's get you checked, let's get the area taken care of. Kind of fall back on that bomb training that a lot of you have received. That will help you out a lot.
In closing, I want to talk about some real quick things you can do. Just remember, defense is possible in these situations, and casualties can be minimum. Also, be proactive in your planning and training. We really encourage the "what if" scenarios. You are sitting around the water container or around the desks with other people, or at the training table or something in your particular office, talk about the "what ifs." What if this happened, what if that happened? What should we do if? If you practice these things mentally, the if they happen and you have already been going through them, you are going to react to these things a lot better. You would be surprised at how well you will react to them if you have already discussed them and already gone over what to do. If you need available resources, you should have books with all the right numbers in them. As far as contacting your emergency authorities, you should all have an emergency action plan in your facility or in your building. If not, you do need to get one, and make sure it's up to date. Make sure it does not have an old revision date on it. Let's check those numbers, make sure they are still good, and that these people can still be notified. All else fails, you dial 9-1-1, and you are going to get a whole group of us in our moonsuits showing up, taking care of the situation, and we will be taking care of you as well. Most of all though, and most importantly, I want to leave you with this, is "Be Prepared, Not Scared." And let's work through this. Life is going to continue to go on. This will go away, but we will keep training for it just so that we are here for you.
Thank you very much.
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