Well, here's a fascinating piece from the Village Voice in NYC ... evidently
they want to regulate private possession of devices that can detect airborne
threats (which I'm SURE are sold in the back of Sodier of Fortune, but still, that's
the free market for you)
This is pretty much crazy. Sorry. Why on earth should every public health
and environmental researcher have to coordinate taking air samples with the
bloody government. Perhaps they are afraid that people will buy BETTER
equipment than the government??? Afraid of a second opinion??? I'm uneasy
about this whole thing, especially since it is mentioned in the article that DHS
officials suggested it. You wanna prevent false alarms? Spend more money on better
equipment and use it sensibly! Any system that runs 24/7 to detect airborne
pathogens (i.e. BioWatch) is going to have false positives and false negatives.
The response systems need better ways of discriminating these from true
signal prior to a full-blown response... we need to prevent repeats of actions
that transpired in Houston following detection of some tularemia DNA on a BioWatch
filter some years ago ...
"There are currently no guidelines regulating the private acquisition of biological, chemical, and radiological detectors," warned Falkenrath, adding that this law was suggested by officials within the Department of Homeland Security. "There are no consistent standards for the type of detectors used, no requirement that they be reported to the police department—or anyone else, for that matter—and no mechanism for coordinating these devices. . . . Our mutual goal is to prevent false alarms . . . by making sure we know where these detectors are located, and that they conform to standards of quality and reliability."
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0803,thompson,78873,2.html
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