New Bioterrorism Task Force Created

Dr. Arnold Howitt, Executive Director of the Taubman center for State and Local Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government (KSG) and Dr. Stephen B. Calderwood, the Chief of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a microbiologist at Harvard Medical School (HMS) were both selected to be on Massachusetts newly created Bioterrorism Coordinating Council.

Acting Governor Jane Swift announced the creation of the council during her State of the State speech on Tuesday. The council will be a six-member panel of experts responsible for developing a comprehensive strategy to protect the state in the event of a bioterrorism attack.

Swift explained that the state cannot respond to threats as they arbitrarily appear. Instead, the state has to be prepared for any sort of bioterrorist attack at all times.

“While we cannot predict the future, we can prevent and prepare,maximizing every resource available to us,” Swift said in her state address.

The council will have its first meeting on Feb. 1.

Calderwood is a infectious disease specialist at HMS and will play a key role in addressing potential bioterrorist threats.

Howitt is an expert in local and state organization, and leads an executive session and research program on domestic preparedness for terrorism at the KSG. His role on the panel will involve working with institutions to create organized and efficient management departments in dealing with bioterrorist threats and attacks.

Howitt emphasized the importance of the council in order to address the possible threats of terrorism.

“We need to be able to respond and to be prepared for any terrorist attack,” he said.

Howitt highlighted three crucial steps in preparing for bioterrorism, the first being the creation of “monitoring and surveillance systems that will be able to identify diseases” threatening to the nation.

Howitt said that without such a system, the process of identifying bioterrorist threats takes a dangerously long time.

A second initiative Howitt stressed involves the ability to respond to the threat of diseases effectively through the creation and sufficient supply of vaccines and appropriate medicines.

However, Howitt explains that such treatments require a third step: the corresponding creation of health care systems and organized hospital facilities. Such facilities will need to be prepared to supply and distribute medication when faced with bioterrorism.

Swift is confident that the council will be able to achieve those goals.

“This council of experts will help create the protocols and procedures necessary,” she said. “I am grateful they all have agreed to take on this task.”

The council will also include Dr. Thomas P. Monath, vice president of the Cambridge-based biotechnology firm Acambis; Dr. Carol Ann Rauch, a bioterrorism specialist at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield; and state Department of Public Health Commissioner Howard Koh. Richard S. Swensen, the state’s Director of Commonwealth Security will lead the council.

—Staff writer Anat Maytal can be reached at maytal@fas.harvard.edu.