http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=91510Report on risks to public criticized
A handful of people stood up to comment at a public hearing Monday evening, and all were critical of a report that analyzed environmental consequences of a proposal to transport personnel who were potentially exposed to infectious agents to Bethesda.
The National Institutes of Health is proposing to transport laboratory personnel suspected of potentially having been occupationally exposed to infectious agents at the biodefense campus in Fort Detrick. They would be taken in a vehicle to a unit at the NIH Bethesda campus for observation and, if necessary, treatment, according to a copy of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
Previously, personnel suspected of being infected were quarantined in a room on the Fort Detrick campus.
According to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement published May 22, the potentially infected personnel would be transported on some of the area's busiest roads. That fact concerned Frederick resident Beth Willis. The roads from Frederick to NIH are among the most congested miles of highway in the nation, she said.
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He said potential exposures would be recognized and the only way for an employee to be exposed without it being known would be such a breach of multiple layers of security, the risk is negligible.
The vast majority of exposures to pathogens have a five-day or longer incubation period, he said. Transporting someone potentially exposed under those circumstance poses minimal risk to public health.
The hearing was in the C. Burr Artz Public Library.
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vast majority. and the small minority?
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