so there's your answer. . .

quacks on the next washington journal, the debts and the deficit. some details on the health care and the decision to delay charges.out of pocket the nuclear waste storage object s with thet correspondent for the las vegas sun. >> in the last few years they have decided they are going to label us morally conditioned human beings unworthy of debate. >> ben schapiro will take your comments live starting at noon.

then the civil rights leader john lewis. for biographer kitty kelley, and december 1, christina hoff sommers. 5, in depth. . book tv on c-span2 >> now a discussion on the public health care system and whether it can handle a disaster, man-made or disaster. among those representatives of the center for disease control and prevention. this is 40 minutes.

>> good afternoon. i am with the alliance for health reform, and i want to welcome you on behalf of our board of directors on this program on how well america is prepared to deal with natural and man-made disasters. an intellectual exercise. i want to steal a sentence written by one of our panelists. a couple years ago, transmitting a plan for public health preparedness and response, dr. recent natural disasters. last five years alone,

national and global health security have been stripped -- have been threatened. the deep water oil spill, the the japaneseake, tsunami and radiation release. that is a breathtaking list for only five years. today we are going to speculate on what the next five years will bring. there pleased to have robert wood johnson foundation, which has been helping americans enjoy healthier lives and get the care they need for 40 years now. have dr. johno

lemkin, a senior vice president of the foundation and director . beforeealthcare group joining the foundation, he directed the illinois department he brings aalth, so great deal of experience and expertise. you for coming. this is a critical topic. tom my viewpoint i was able charge with participating in response for a number of disasters that many may not have but i became with, quite interested in that. was in emergency

medicine. i can tell you it is a challenging task. one of the things back in the late 90's that i thought was critical was we would have a molecular biology lab. up until then, we would grow cultures in the lab, and trying to track the disease was very challenging. you could do dna fingerprints, and i thought that was really important. they said it sounds like a good idea. the following year we had the same conversation. then we had september 11. in 2001 we set up a molecular

biology lab, because we had thousands of samples people sent because they were concerned it was going to be anthrax. that could be part of the story. in 2002 there was an event outside of illinois where people e.rted coming down with coli, and we had the capability to do fingerprinting that was able to trace the individuals who were sick to this one particular site and this one particular type of food. in 2002 when west nile hit our state a fact we had a molecular runogy lab allowed us to thousands of tests on people who thought they might have been affected by this disease.

why we feel this particular issue of reparative is so important, because it is not just about responding to major disasters that make the news. it is also about making sure we are ready to deal with a small event. we are pleased to be cosponsors and to recognize what we are talking about has an impact on all of our lives while beefing up the help system at the same time as beefing up our ability catastrophic major event. >> let me do a little housekeeping. have written materials.

if you are watching on c-span were watching the webcast -- or watching the webcast on our website, if you have access to a computer, you can not only watch along as presentations are given, but have access to this name -- to the same background materials everyone in the room has. there will be transcripts , and i want you to know there is a green question card in your packet.

you can also go to the where you can ask a question in your own voice. if you are part of the twitterverse, you can take part using #twittertalk. note, we are going to have a good discussion about preparedness of the public health system, and i do not want you to think we are not aware there is another part of the system that we do not have time to cover, and that is preparedness of the health care system. part to playhave a and being able to respond to the kinds of disasters we are talking about.

they have responsibility for other programs that are useful in this regard, and we hope to turn our attention to that at some point. terrific panel. then we will turn to your questions. we will start with the director of the american public health association, which represents public health professionals. he is a board specialist. with somebody familiar public health and its role in dealing with different types of disasters at many levels. we are happy to have you on our panel. you for having me

today. i am going to start by pointing out our new reality. can you hear me now? i am going to start i talking reality, the fact we are clearly in a dangerous technology we have today is very different from what we had years ago. i want to point out the nature -- we often say nature is the first terrorist because of the enormous impact nature can have in creating infectious diseases as well as extreme weather. globalization is a blessing and a curse, the fact we can have rapid movement of diseases. oneften talk about being

plane ride away from something very bad. we are one e-mail away from dangerous information that should be out of the hands of people that are very dangerous. very challenging world today. heard about the significant threats. we had a foodborne outbreak. outbreak thatt shows about our need to refine programs as well as challenges to the infrastructure for public health. the fertilizer explosion tells us a lot about what can happen rurale america -- in

america. of course the tornadoes that can devastate communities. the importance is public health role in all of these things. about the boston bombings. what many people do not , they were heralded for the fine work, but they did work in a staged event, and things worked as they should work, but that tells you the importanceotice --

of preparedness. needs a range of capacities. we need to know when a new disease enters the community. we need to be able to measure it, do surveillance, track what it does. thee is a range of capacity public health system needs to and each community needs to have these capabilities. out theo point community is one of resilience. i am going to use the definition of resilience we use in national

security, but it means the ability to get back on its feet, to respond quickly. recovery is very important. about thehink disasters we have had over the and theor 15 years, ability to recover, that tells you about the internal capacity of communities. communities are different. adapt to ando recover quickly from a disaster. we know too many americans do individual preparedness seriously. there was a survey that they sickly says half of the

individuals have not done the to be prepared. i know the american public health association is working with the public to try to address some of these. is get ready campaign designed to try to the old resilience. created a series of resources to try to allow to be prepared. we have gotten engaged in the social media world so we have logs and e-mails and twitter mailsity -- blogs and e- and twitter activities. all kinds of things remind

people it is time to get prepared and try to engage people to improve their health. i am going to leave you with one final note. are all in this major time of trying to get universal health care for all americans, but i need to point out that even when we achieve a well functioning health care system of the highest quality that provides the cure at an optimal cost, we do not have that, but we are working to achieve that. even if every american gets the platinum health care plan, that -- if each ofwant us has that, we would still need

a robust public health system prepared to address that. it is important to understand most of what we do in preparedness is done not by the healthcare delivery system. hear from theou other speakers, they will talk about that in greater detail. i will turn it back to you. going to turn to dr. khan. center forrects the response. dr. khan was a primary source emergency- behind the

repair and this program and designed a response to the which shut down this building. internist, and we are pleased to have you with us today. >> technology in action. thank you very much for that introduction. i have the honor of being able to support public health

efforts. this is to make sure americans ,re saved from all threats whether they are natural disasters, pandemics, or the routine epidemics you read about every day in your paper. what was clear from your there areon, ramifications of the events that require national response. increasingly we have been talking about public health and security. she actually mentioned we should broadly as cdc more our nationaling

security. let's see if this piece of technology works. >> probably not. there you go. >> not that i need these. a couple of things. we are responsible for establishing national strategy .nd policy we are fortunate to have $1.3 to fund these. also run some critical operations many of you are aware of. the emergency center, as we talk

with our partners, we run a stockpile. this is so we can make sure we get life-saving materials to americans when they need it. agency run a regulatory .hat regulates 300 labs the crown jewel of our program is our state and local preparedness program, and we put million to $700 million a year to prepare for public health threats. of the a reflection reality of public health. not happen atis

the cdc. it happens at the state and local level. responsehere the occurs. we need to make sure we are ready for public threats and are ready to respond. structured consistent with national preparedness. these funds go out not just to , a couple of large cities, and territories, but to public health departments across the united states. the end of the day it gets quite diffuse. 50% is for disease monitoring work, and the same is true for

laboratory activities. fornext big chunk is laboratory preparedness. what i would like to do is make that a little less abstract. i can talk about capabilities, but how does this translate to your communities? is look ate to do what these resources are doing in your communities and communication efforts. the outbreak, which i believe we , 560 odd cases. of capabilities help for other foodborne outbreaks you may hear about.

today we released an alert to all state and local health ofartments about a solution calcium that was contaminated with the bacteria products, so we made sure to get it off the market to make sure our patients calcium given this carbonate. many of you remember the meningitis out rate. outbreak. there are multiple resources to respond to this out rate, but that includes making sure we have epidemiologists, tracking systems, to make sure we could set up an emergency operation system, to make sure we have law enforcement to say, we would like you to see a clinician to see if you have been contaminated.

with west nile we were fortunate to help our colleagues. five or sixere were cases. anyone from dallas? a third of the cases occurred in dallas. we were able to use resources to help with abatement. you already heard about the boston marathon. to get theble community ready for that arming and other such events. this is not abstract. this is going on in your communities every day to make sure you are protected from public health threats. this is to give you a reality of

what happened in your state and local health departments over the last decade. i would like to have platinum level public health for all americans if we can arrange that going forward. inre has been a decline public funding for response within your communities. with these slides. we are always trying to improve our program. there are a couple of things we are trying to do. one is to enhance global health efforts. pathogens do not need passports. they are crossing borders. we used to be lucky when the incubation was shorter than the time to get here. comingwere on a ship and

from the united states, you pretty much knew and you could orenstein the ship. now if you take a plane, it is an incubation center for some of the deadliest diseases in the world. globally aboutk protecting americans. how do we improve disease monitoring? how do we take advantage of monitoring public health records ? we need to do a better job. one of the key things i have much all ofretty the disasters you heard about at the beginning of this presentation i have had some opportunity of participating. what has become clear to me is how we get judged as a society.

how do we respond to the most full durable members of our community? withhey children or people other disabilities, they cannot be annexes to our plans. integral to our responding. finally an effort we are heavily improve, how do we preparedness act committees? they put out a yearly report of critical things they want to focus on. out an index, a state-by-state effort to look more comprehensively at public health and health care preparedness