-- Civil Defense Has Become The Forgotten Defense

-- Government, Doctors Public Need To Act Immediately

American troops willingly put themselves in harm's way to protect their families and their homeland. But should they head for Afghanistan when their families are totally unprotected at home? The United States once had a civil defense program. It died with John F. Kennedy.

Those are the concerns expressed by Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP), a physician organization dedicated since 1983 to promoting homeland defense and prudent preparedness for disasters of all kinds, including war or terrorism.

In an article, "Civil Defense, the Forgotten Defense" posted on the DDP Web site at www.oism.org/ddp, DDP president Jane M. Orient, M.D. cites numerous examples of how Americans have been stripped of the rudimentary civil defense protections they once had, and urges the new Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies to take immediate action for civilian protections, such as securing and stocking shelters.

"American buildings contain a lot of space suitable for shelters, but thanks to federal policy it is probably not stocked. It's not just lack of funding. Companies such as Boeing that have contracts with the government are actually forbidden to prepare shelter space for emergency occupancy," writes Dr. Orient.

"State emergency planning centers used to have hundreds or thousands of survey meters and Geiger counters to measure radiation, so citizens could be advised when to take shelter and when it was safe to emerge. These instruments were disposed of or given away years ago and not replaced. Our county kept about half a dozen," writes Dr. Orient.

Dr. Orient lists actions the government could take immediately, at minimal cost:

-- Encourage privately owned facilities that contract with the government to prepare and stock existing space for fallout shelters (or at least repeal any prohibitions);

-- Resume distribution of information on expedient civil defense measures tested at Oak Ridge National Laboratories to state and local emergency workers, emergency broadcast facilities, and interested citizens;

-- Stockpile potassium iodide and directions for use to protect the thyroid gland in the event of fallout;

-- Stockpile unprocessed grain and beans as an emergency food supply in the event that a year's crops are contaminated;

-- Improve methods of detecting chemical and biological agents; stockpile and disperse antibiotics and antidotes; have instructions for Israeli-style sealed rooms ready for dissemination.

Dr. Orient also urges physicians to take a crash-course on diagnosing, treating and reporting possible cases of biological and chemical terrorism. DDP has posted these tools for physicians, as well the public, on the Web site at www.oism.org/org.

"Our imagination has been expanded in the past month. What was unthinkable to us is not necessarily unthinkable to everyone. Civil defense is the necessary foundation for all defense. The time to start is now," concludes Dr. Orient.