feb01

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CALENDAR
Next Team meeting --
Wed., February 26, 2003 @ 1800 hrs.
Where? CA-4 Operations Center
8540 Production Avenue, Suite B, San Diego
Location is in Miramar Area, 1.8 miles E of I-805 exit at Miramar Rd. Turn N on Production Avenue, 1/2 block on the left. (Remember, we have no mail box at the Ops Center, so never use this address for mailing purposes)
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* "2003 Annual NDMS Conference," Reno Nevada, March 8-12, 2003. At the Reno Hilton.
web site: http://oep-ndms.dhhs.gov/NDMS%20 Conference/ conf2k3/conf2k3.html+-
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Commander's Log
Current issues at hand:
*Just as we arrived back from Guam, we received four pallets from Perry Point. Three of them contain our newest items for the Basic Load: The Cold weather package for our Western Shelter Tents. This includes an external, diesel fuel-powered heating system, and insulated tent liners. These would be taken with us and used for cold weather deployments. They add around 2,000 pounds to our basic load. We will never get our load on just 5 military pallets again. At least the issue of using open flame kerosene heaters in an environment where high flow oxygen is being used, is now resolved.
   The fourth pallet contains basic medical supplies we were short, based on our last inventory in March 2002.
   We will need a Logistics Work Day to inventory the items and reconfigure stored items at our Ops Center Warehouse, in time to be ready for April 2002. Our logistics personnel have their work cut out for them, and we may need your assistance in getting this job done over the next 4 weeks.
* News from the NDMS Conference call, held on the first Thursday of every even month: NDMS has already had several mission assignments since the first of the year:
1) the State of the Union Address in January saw the PHS-1 team activated for stand by;
        2) The Avian Exotic Newcastle Disease Virus outbreak in LA and adjacent Orange County, was well as in Las Vegas, has resulted in an agreement signed between the Dept of Agriculture and NDMS, for medical personnel to be provided to support the DOA field workers and administrative personnel. Three clinics have been set up, one in Las Vegas, one in Los Alamitos, CA and one in Colton, CA, CA-1 and CA-2 are staffing the clinics in Southern California, and the new Nevada-1 team is staffing the clinic in Las Vegas. This will be a long deployment, and our team may be asked to provide personnel for such staffing. Thanks to those who have already stepped up and offered to be on the schedule. Those still interested should contact me as soon as possible.
      3) The loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia, STS-107, and its 7 astronauts, has resulted in activation of DMORT assets.
        4) The Aadvancement of the Threat Level to ORANGE led to teams being placed on ALERT, in upstate New York, due to certain information in the hands of the Federal Government.
   Planning for the attendance of as many as 25 CA-4 team members at the Annual Conference of NDMS, in Reno, Nevada, continues. The following is the current list of CA-4 members who have listed their intention to attend the Annual Meeting, and will be partially funded up to a total $750. per person, to help defray registration, hotel and airfare.

Dieffenbacher, Mona; Domino-Snyder,Valerie
Fitzgerald, Beverly; Hicks, Toni; Jacoby, Jake
Markland,Josephine; Ontiveros, Sara
Perkins, Chuck; Perkins, Peggy; Pregent,Susana
Prepas, Robbie; Reeves, Mark; Rogers, Ken
Ruiz, Sal; Snyder, Ed; Soderberry, Robbin
Sohmer, Michael; Spuhler, Kevin; Steinberg, Craig
Thoreson, Jack; van den Hout, Carla
Wahrenbrock, Zona; Welsh, Mary; Wood, James

Those on the above list should have hotel reservations made by now, as well as airline tickets, and should have registered for the meeting. Ten of you have been identified as having your registration already paid for by Purchase Order, while the rest of you will need to charge or pay for the meeting registration and apply for reimbursement. Make sure you save your receipt for submission. Save ALL receipts , for hotel, and air fare, and , if under $750. you can also submit for airport shuttle fare in San Diego (again, save that receipt), or mileage to and from the airport.
In addition, 3 other members of our team have alternate sources of funding and will also be attending:
Therese Rymer, Larry Griffin, and Deanna Polk.

*DMAT CA-4 Vaccination Clinics were held on Sat. and Sunday, Feb 15th and 16th, along with "Administrative Paperwork Clinics." Many thanks to Therese Rymer, Deputy CDR and Zona Wahrenbrock, Administrative Officer, who spent their weekend dealing with the admin and immunization needs of our members. Overall, over a dozen team members showed up for review of their immunization records and vaccines as needed. For those who could not make it, please be sure to call Therese Rymer's Office and make an appointment for review of your immunization records and to get updates on those shots you need, if you are unable to get them covered through your regular insurance. Thanks also to Carla van den Hout, who helped out throughout the day.
*Check out the reactivated DMAT CA-4 Web site. Go to www.dmatca4.org, and see pictures from recent deployments. Thanks to our new webmaster, John Johnson. If you have ideas about what you would like to see on our web site, contact John, his eMail link is on the web site.
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LAST CALL
In order to be deployable, all members MUST have on file what is called "Intermittent Appointment Paperwork." We have been collecting paperwork for what seems like years now, and the deadline is now upon us. All final intermittent appointment paperwork must be sent in and received by NDMS by February 28th. We will be Fed Ex'ing our final sets of paperwork on February 27th to NDMS. There are still a number of members, many of whom have been relatively inactive, or who have never deployed, who have still not completed the packet of paperwork. How do you know if you are one of those? Well, individual letters went out to almost everyone whose paperwork is not completed. Unless we hear from you, your entire NDMS file will be moved to the "Archives of NDMS." We have no idea where that is, but I suspect it is a box somewhere in a dark basement. With the move of NDMS to Homeland Security, we have no idea where the archives will wind up. We don't even know if NDMS will stay where they are, or move. So, if you want to stay in the system, and not have to return your uniforms, and still think you want to be deployed, you MUST contact our Administrative officer by Feb. 26th and arrange to complete whatever paperwork is needed to stay in the system.
Call Zona at 858-581-2858 and find out, or contact her by eMail zwahrenbrock@san.rr.com.
Here is a list of members, as of this writing, who MUST get us their paperwork by the next meeting at the VERY LATEST:
Abernathy, Vicki
Acebo, Ernesto
Allen, Keith
Amer-Davis,Stacy
Anderson, Brian
Ballard, Rodney
Barsalou, Thea (couple items left)
Bigley,Deborah
Bonesteele, Jeri
Bottomley, Don
Braemer, Marit
Brennan, Robert
Briscoe,Kimberly
Brooks, Diane
Browne, Barbara
Case,Christopher
Catton,Elizabeth
Chionis,George
Chionis, Rita
Cornish, Richard
Costelow,Edward
Curnow, Robert
Curtis, Tim
Dastrup. Pamela
Davenport, Jerry
Davenport, Mark
De La Barra, Carlos
Duncan, John
Ekard, Pamela
Erickson, Kirk

Esparza, Sophie
Fitzgerald, Lori
Furnald, Lynette
Galvan, Juan
Gamibto, Fe
Grad, Michele
Graydon,Cheryl
Griffin, Charles "Chip"
Grimes, Robert (resume, OF-612)
Hamilton,Robert
Hayden, Marina
Hayden, Stephen
Hennig, Michael
Ho, Christopher
Hutchinson, Robert
Johnson, Stephen
Kelley, Gabriela
Kornasiewicz, Amy
Krimston, Joshua
Kwock, Nicole
Lampe, Gina
Lampe, Greg
Lange, Robert
Leung, Amy
Lezak, Myron
Lupinacci, Donna
Lyon, Kevin
Maguire,Henry
Melton, Rick
Miller, David
Miller, Jennifer
Oakley, Victoria
Pierce, Deborah
Powers, Anne
Pregent, Michael
Rich, Wade
Romers, Shawna
Runner, Jeanne
Sacramento, Earl
Salyards, Deanna
Sandoval, Mitchell
Schroeder, Mary
Seeley, Anthony
Shaw,Lance
Smith, Heidi
Soderberg, Karin
Spada,Roberta
Spiro, mark
Stewart,Marie
Stone, Caryl
Taylor, Susan
Toy, Robert
Unger,John
Van Hoesen, Karen
Velasquez, Jerry
Vinson, Marjorie
Warner,Jr., Edward
Washington, Michael
Wold, Ruth
Zwass, Josef

IF YOUR NAME IS ON THIS LIST, contact the team administrative officer, or come early before the team meeting which starts at 6 PM on Wednesday, Feb 26th , to update your paperwork. Without this paperwork, we will be removing your name from our mailing list and your file will be entered into an Archive file. Should you wish to reinstate your membership in the future, you may still do so, but you will NOT be able to do it once we are on ALERT or preparing for deployment. If you plan on completing your intermittent appointment packet at the meeting, please be sure to bring: copy of your resume; current professional license; Driver's License and social security card; Passport if you have one; a voided check for new direct deposit form, and a check for dues.
If you think your name is on this list in error, please also contact Zona and let her know. She can check to   see if we already have your paperwork on file.
   This may also be your last DMAT newsletter, too, if your dues has not been paid up. if you wish to be a part our team, but not deploy, please let us know as well, since the paperwork is for people who either want to deploy, or who would want to be paid for work they do to assist the team while getting ready for deployment, while working here in San Diego. Also,anyone on the list for participation in the Ukraine exercise MUST have their paperwork in order.
   If you know people on this list, please contact them and let them, whatis up right away, since some of the folks on this list have moved and not given us their forwarding address, and may not have been getting their newsletters or emails.
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DMAT San Diego CA-4 2002 VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR Award
And the Winner is....Michael Sohmer
Michael Sohmer is a pharmacist. He works at the Sharp-Chula Vista Hospital. He joined the team in 2001, and deployed for the first time with CA-4 for Super Typhoon Pongsona, to Guam. But before that, Michael was way out front with his efforts to assure our pharmaceutical basic load would be ready for any next deployments.
   He was a participant in Rough and Ready 2002 at the Orange County Fair Grounds, and was actively involved with the antibiotic prophylaxis scenario. He has been on the NDMS conference calls reviewing the pharmacy basic load with Mark Gonitzky. He attended the training course over last summer on the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile (NPS), in Aniston, AL at the Noble Training Center, and contributed to the team patch collection at the Ops Center, with the patch from the Center for Bioterrorism Training at Aniston. He wrote updated protocols for both Cardinal and for McKesson, and met with pharmacy representatives from co-sponsor UCSD Medical Center, to make sure the paperwork and the phone numbers for emergency contacts were current, and that every one knew how the system was supposed to work. He identified a few snags, just in time for the Guam activation, and thus when the call out occurred for Guam, we were definitely ready. He supervised the inventory of the load when it arrived at the DMAT Ops Center the night we were activated, and noticed that only a quarter of the basic load was sent, enabling the correct full order to be supplied, before we left. Only through his alertness and dedication to doing the job were we able to have the correct pharmaceutical basic load.

He has also helped out on the new DMAT Ops Center computer, and has demonstrated dedication to the team in so many ways. He is truly deserving of this year's Volunteer Member of the Year Award. And he was chosen by team vote. Congratulations to Michael. He will be recognized on Sunday, March 9th, at the ceremony honoring the Volunteers of the Year from each of the response teams in the NDMS System, in Reno, Nevada, at the Annual Conference of NDMS. The ceremony will start at 5:30 PM. ALL team members from CA-4 who are attending the meetings should be there to show our support for CA-4 and for Michael.

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Book Reviews
1) Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox, by Jonathan B.Tucker. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001. 291 pp.
2) Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World-Told from the Inside by the Man who Ran It, by Ken Alibek with Stephen Handelman. New York: Dell Publishing, a Division of Random House, 1999. 319 pp.

If you read these two books, you are prepared for the Era of Bioterrorism. The first, by an expert on biological and chemical weapons at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, has degrees in biology and in political science. The book covers the recorded history of smallpox, as well as the politics of the WHO's successful worldwide conquest of smallpox. Many questions I had wondered about were answered in this volume, such as, "Where did vaccinica virus come from?" " What is the relationship between the cowpox of Edward Jenner and the currently used vaccine strains?" "Is vaccinia virus the same as cowpox virus?" "If not, where did it come from?" "If liquid vaccine had to be refrigerated, how was it able to conquer smallpox in tropical countries?" ""What was the role of the Soviet Union in the eradication of smallpox in the 60s and 70's?""How long did the US Government actually know about the Soviet Smallpox weaponization before it revealed it to the public?" If you know the answers to all these questions, then you are already an expert and don't really need to read this very readable book. If not, you will need to seek out this well-written volume.
Alibek's book is a landmark. Until I read this, I had only the New Yorker article from around 3 years ago to read about the Soviet deceit. but the scale of it all was unimaginable. Does ANYONE need 20 tons of weaponized smallpox virus? What were they thinking? The lies and paranoia of the Soviet leadership are patent and profound. They lied so much about the suspected evils of the United States that they started to believe them themselves. The volume exposes the pathological, delusional state that the USSR was. The author, a Khazakstani whose original name was Kanatjan Alibekov, but whose rise to leadership got him as far as being second in command at Biopreparat, the facade that hid the greatest biological weapons research and military program of all time, reveals the extent of the progress and the size of the program that was in violation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention at the moment it was signed. Alibek was motivated by the information he was told, that the US in fact must be developing such weapons, which therefore justified the Soviet program. However, after two decades of progress in the USSR, and weaponization and mass production of numerous biological agents, Alibek was astounded to learn, upon visiting the US on an inspection tour, that in fact the US had kept its promise to not develop bioweapons, all along, while they had covertly violated it. Over 10,000 people were working on the program at one time, and the sheer amount so f weaponized anthrax and smallpox are far greater than even the intelligence establishment in the US suspected. After a series of fascinating political turn, Alibek defected to the west in 1992, and revealed all he knows about the programs. He now is a major consultant to the US Government on biowarfare technology. Once you read this volume, it will change your mind about the smallpox threat; it may change your politics as well.

PS: if you only have time for one, read SCOURGE, as it does summarize some of the key aspects of the Alibek book. albeit in a single chapter.
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In Memoriam: Dr. L. James Grold
DMAT CA-4 announces the passing of team member L. James Grold. Jim specialized in psychopharmacology and psychotherapy for individuals, couples and families. He graduated from Stanford University Medical School and was appointed as a Fellow at the Menninger Foundation, where he received his psychiatric training. He served as the medical director of two psychiatric hospitals.
He volunteered his services as the medical director and psychiatric consultant for 1-800-THERAPIST, a referral network, which he founded in 1979 to help individuals find competent therapists. 1-800-THERAPIST, which has evolved into an international referral service and network, was commended by the U.S. Congress for it's community service. This commendation was published in the United States Congressional Record. 1-800-THERAPIST has also received awards from other governmental agencies. He also volunteered his services at a free mental health clinic and for NDMS. He participated as a medical officer at times of national disasters, and, as a member of DMAT CA-8, he deployed for duty following the Northridge Earthquake, and for the Atlanta Olympics. DMAT CA-8 later merged with CA-4. He has written and had published many articles and chapters in books on a variety of psychiatric subjects. He was elected a Life Fellow in the American Psychiatric Association and a Diplomate of the American College of Forensic Psychiatry. Dr. Grold passed away on January 24th after a struggle against cancer. He is survived by his wife Jan and 2 sons.