Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
During the Cold War, there were some calls for civil defense measures to prepare for a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. School children were told to practice “Duck and Cover” under their desks. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961, there was a boom in the construction of bomb shelters. One of Ronald Reagan’s White House staff suggested that people should dig a hole in their yard, cover it with a door and then dirt for a shelter.
The Center of Disease Control's Strategic National Stockpile has already designated sites for stockpiles of medical supplies to be used after disasters such as a nuclear detonation. He said, “All states, all large cities have all thought about this. I think the challenge for us will be distribution, a very large one.”
The CDC national stockpiles currently have medicine and medical materials to treat radiation sickness. Adams expressed a concern that they may not have enough burn kits to treat burns from the blast. Medical specialists from the American Burn Association often raised concerns during the workshop about the number and training of burn experts in the U.S. The treatment of children was of special concern. There are only about three hundred qualified burn surgeons currently available in the whole country. Burn treatment training during medical school for surgeons was cut back ten years ago.
A nurse from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health pointed out that nurses and doctors had a great fear of radiation exposure and might flee a nuclear detonation instead of staying around to treat the survivors. She also pointed out that there had been no study of the economic effects of a major nuclear detonation on the U.S. economy. She said that legislators would not be inclined to vote for a bill to train and equip emergency responders for a nuclear attack unless the extra cost of such training and equipping could be justified.
Ron Miller is the acting director of the National Disaster Medical System at the US Department of Health and Human Services. He was also worried that not all the estimated six thousand nurses, doctors, or other medical professionals would actually show up after a nuclear attack.
Dallas raised concerns about what he said were two types of widespread complacency that made it more difficult to plan for dealing with a big nuclear detonation. The first complacency is the belief in areas far from big cities that nuclear attacks would not affect them. The truth is that a major nuclear attack anywhere in the U.S. would strain the resources of the entire country no matter where the attack took place. The second complacency is the belief that a major nuclear attack would just kill everyone in the area and that planning for disaster response would be futile. The truth is that acute radiation poisoning and severe burns can be successfully treated.
There is a tendency for people to ignore threats that they cannot do anything about. It is important that U.S. citizens realize that although a major nuclear attack in the U.S. would kill and injure many people, there are many things that can be done before any such attack to prepare for treatment of victims.