Martin Kitten by Jon Guttman

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As such, their role is generally performed at the direction of state authorities. The National Guard Civil Support Team (CST) WMD requirement came from the principle that domestic disaster relief is fundamentally a state mission. The units are deployed at the discretion of the state governor, unless they are federalized. The CST focus is on filling a void in the state’s initial assessment capability and initiating requests for additional state or federal response assets. Each CST unit consists of 22 full-time National Guard personnel.

The teams are deployable worldwide on a 12-h notice using US Air Force airlift. The AIT uses specialized isolation that maintains a contained environment under negative pressure and HEPA filtration to safely transport patients or to care for them in place for limited periods of time. This capability is limited to two patients at a time, based on the number of trained personnel and equipment on hand. The US Marine Corps Chemical/Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF) can respond to biological or chemical incidents to assist the on-the-scene commander in DOD Capabilities 15 providing initial postincident consequence management.

Multiple cases of pneumonic tularemia rather than the more common ulceroglandular presentation). A potential terrorist might choose to use a pathogen not usually considered to be a biological threat, and perhaps not even monitored by public health agencies, such as the West Nile virus, which was responsible for a natural outbreak in New York in 1999 (16). The introduction and establishment of West Nile virus in the United States was considered by some to have been a purposeful event (17). Finally, the use of novel or genetically engineered strains of agents by terrorists could be particularly insidious.