Bioterrorism & Pandemic Preparedness Course

Accurate Information Key to Fighting the New War at Home
By Bill Siuru

The goal of terrorism is to terrorize. Today, terrorist groups, not yet fully identified, aided by the media, unprepared government agencies and the rumor mill are doing a great job in scaring us. Americans are altering their lifestyles by changing their buying and traveling habits. Talk around the water cooler about the latest terrorist incident means hours of lost productivity. Workers are losing sleep worrying and thus not at their peak the next day. This is impacting the economy.

The 'fast buck' types are already selling essentially worthless items from World War II gas masks and backyard nuclear-age survival shelters to dubious biochemical home detection kits and inappropriate medicines. The more paranoid types are hoarding antibiotics resulting in a potential shortage should a real medical emergency occur. The ultra paranoid are buying AK47s and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. Well intentioned, but unqualified "experts" are advising people to iron their mail or wash their skin with Clorox if they think they have been exposed to biological agents.

Recognizing the dire consequences of misinformation and lack of information, world renowned snow survival expert Art Seely and his Safety One/Snow Operations Center in Colorado has located the country's top medical experts to develop a new bio-terrorism course. The eight-hour bio-terrorism course will provide key community, Siuru/Bio Course industry, business, transportation and educational leaders and spokespersons with actual, truthful and reasonable information about the biological threat facing the nation. Besides its world recognized snow survival course, Safety One/SOTC offers courses on subjects from Helicopter Passenger Safety to Antenna and Tower Climbing Safety and Rescue. Seely, who is an experienced paramedic with over 15 years of experience in safety education, has training and professional certification in emergency response to and management of hazardous materials.

Dr. Charles Goldstein, a bio-terrorism course co-director, has 25-years of experience in emergency medicine. He is the Commander of the U.S. Public Health Service's Central U.S. National Medical Response Team covering Weapons of Mass Destruction. This rapid response medical counter terrorism team can be deployed anywhere in the U.S. to manage a nuclear, biological, or chemical incident or attack.

The new course provides the facts about actual threats and how real their potential is to affect individual lives. This includes the actual threat scenarios the population faces along with the best and worst case scenarios. Much of this based on the lessons learned from previous biological events and the response to them.

Please call or email for current available dates for custom classes.

The bio-terrorism course tells how individuals, families, businesses, government agencies and other organizations can assess there own particular level of exposure to each type of biological risk. This is followed by recommendations on steps to be taken right now, before an event, to minimize or avoid the impact of bio-terrorism if and when an event should occur. Next, there is information on steps that must be taken during and after a bio-terrorism event. Although each category of biological threat is Siuru/Bio Course unique, they share many of the same preventative measures. Knowing exactly what to expect and how to deal rationally with each type of threat using available resources will be a life saving skill. The bio-terrorism course will not promote any specific product or service, nor will it cover security issues. It is designed only to disseminate information.

Seely says, "I and all the others involved with this bio-terrorism class feel incredibly lucky. We have a group of bio-terrorism skills that are badly needed right now in the US. We have a real opportunity to make a difference in a lot of people's lives right now. Whether all we accomplish is to help some families sleep better while waiting for a bio-terrorism threat that never arrives, in itself a very valuable accomplishment, or whether some simple bio-terrorism knowledge and skills we manage to pass along actually become critical in saving people's lives--either way we all feel it is the most important thing we can do right now."

Course Outline

• Bio-terrorism History - an overview of how biological weapons have been used, both successfully and unsuccessfully, in warfare and terrorist attacks.
• Methods of biological distribution - methods that can be used to deploy a biological or chemical weapon.
• Biological agents - categories of bio agents based on organism type, incubation period, lethality, communicability, ease of infection, ease of distribution, etc.
• Discussion of individual biological agents - signs, symptoms and natural course of the various diseases as well as how they can be treated.
• National Bio-terrorism Preparedness - the federal government's contingency planning for a bio-terrorist attack including the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile.
• Personal Bio-terrorism protection - dispel myths and provide a rational understanding of what individuals can do to protect themselves in the event of a bio-terrorist event.

To learn more about this rewarding bio-terrorism safety class please email us.