Impact of Homeland Security Alert level on calls to a law enforcement peer support hotline.

The Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS) was established by the Department of Homeland Security to communicate the risk of a terrorist event. In order to explore the potential psychological impacts of HSAS we analyzed the effects of terror alerts on the law enforcement community. We used data from the New Jersey Cop 2 Cop crisis intervention hotline. Incidence Rate Ratios--interpreted as average relative increases in the daily number of calls to the Cop 2 Cop hotline during an increased alert period--were computed from Poisson models. The hotline received a total of 4,145 initial calls during the study period. The mean daily number of calls was higher during alert level elevation compared to prior 7 days (7.68 vs. 8.00). In the Poisson regression analysis, the Incidence Rate Ratios of number of calls received during elevated alert levels compared to the reference period of seven days preceding each change in alert were close to 1, with confidence intervals crossing 1 (i.e. not statistically significant) for all lag periods evaluated. This investigation, in the context of New Jersey law enforcement personnel, does not support the concern that elevating the alert status places undue stress upon alert recipients.

Understanding radiologic and nuclear terrorism as public health threats: preparedness and response perspectives.

Terrorism dates back to antiquity, but our understanding of it as a public health threat is still in its nascent stages. Focusing on radiation and nuclear terrorism, we apply a public health perspective to explore relevant physical health and psychosocial impacts, the evolving national response infrastructure created to address terrorism, and the potential roles of nuclear medicine professionals in preparing for and responding to radiologic and nuclear terrorism.

Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium DT104 isolated from humans, United States, 1985, 1990, and 1995.

First isolated from an ill person in 1985, multidrug-resistant Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium DT104 emerged in the mid-1990s as a strain of Salmonella frequently isolated from humans in the United States. We compared the integron content, plasmid profile, and XbaI pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns of multidrug-resistant S. Typhimurium DT104 (MR-DT104) isolated from humans in the United States in 1985, 1990, and 1995. All isolates contained a 60-mDa plasmid and had indistinguishable PFGE and integron profiles, supporting the idea of a clonal relationship between recent and historical isolates. The data suggest that the widespread emergence of MR-DT104 in humans and animals in the 1990s may have been due to the dissemination of a strain already present in the United States rather than the introduction of a new strain.