Officials say state not prepared for attack Maine working on delivery network for vaccines in case of large-scale bioterrorism

PORTLAND – Maine is not prepared to get emergency medicines and vaccines to residents across the state in the event of a large bioterrorism attack, health officials say.

The state is still working on developing a reliable delivery network and setting up the workspace and security that are needed to distribute stockpiled medicines to Mainers if needed. The state effort is part of a larger national stockpile program.

Health officials say cuts in federal funding have slowed the effort to prepare. But it also is clearly a massive bureaucratic and logistical effort, especially in a rural state like Maine.

Maine is essentially creating a distribution network from scratch, unlike other states that have public health departments in every community and every county, said Dr. Lani Graham, medical director of the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness.

Graham said recent progress has been made setting up facilities where large stockpiles could be delivered and secured. The state also is working with private physicians and health care workers to create the basis of a delivery network.

It also has created three regional resource centers to help coordinate efforts in southern, central and eastern Maine.

But the state has much to do before putting its system to a test. Among other tasks, responders need to be identified, assigned to specific roles, trained and provided security clearances and protective equipment.

“There’s definitely been improvement. The question always is, is it sufficient? And I think everybody is kind of anxious,” Graham said. “We naturally feel that we’re not as fully prepared as we would like to be.”

The government created the strategic national stockpile program in 1999 to respond to natural disasters or terrorist attacks. The stockpiles include vaccines and other medical supplies to protect against such threats as anthrax, the plague and smallpox.

The medical supplies are stored in secret locations around the country and can be loaded into planes or trucks and delivered to any affected area within 12 hours. It is up to each state to distribute and dispense the supplies.

The Bush administration substantially increased the stockpiles and state preparedness grants after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the anthrax poisonings later that year.

But funding for state programs has since been cut back. Maine, for example, received $7.8 million in fiscal year 2002, according to the report. The state is getting $6.1 million in the current fiscal year, said Dr. Dora Anne Mills, director of the Bureau of Health.

Maine apparently isn’t alone in not being fully prepared. A report released Monday by a Democratic congressman says only two states are considered to be at the highest level of preparedness and capable of getting medicines to their citizens quickly enough to protect them.

The report, released by the office of Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, calls for more federal funding to the states and a bigger role for the National Guard, among other things.

The report says without the state-by-state ability to deliver and dispense the national stockpiles, “our nation remains woefully unprepared for a bioterrorism attack.”