Washington, DC — The International Association of Emergency Medical Services Chiefs (IAEMSC) provided testimony to the Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security on the topic of Medical Countermeasures. On May 12, 2011, IAEMSC President Lawrence E. Tan delivered testimony on behalf of the Emergency Services Sector Coalition on Medical Countermeasures.
The House Subcommittee conducted a hearing entitled “Taking Measure of Countermeasures (Part 2): A Review of Efforts to Protect the Homeland Through distribution and Dispensing of CBRN Medical Countermeasures.” Chief Tan recommended the planning and deployment of emergency caches of pre-positioned personal and agency medical countermeasures for emergency services sector personnel and their families.
“A medical countermeasure program that does not effectively protect the emergency services sector as the first group likely to be exposed during performance of their duties, is insufficient,” stated Chief Tan. “Protecting America’s emergency responders will not only contribute to our national resilience, but it’s the right thing to do.”
The Emergency Services Sector Coalition on Medical Countermeasures consists of emergency services professional association members and staff, policy groups and pharmaceutical company staff that are working to promote the development of a national strategy for protecting emergency services from a CBRNE incident. The International Association of EMS Chiefs (IAEMSC) is a professional association established to support, promote and advance the leadership of response entities and to advocate for the EMS profession.
The IAEMSC membership consists of leaders from both career and volunteer EMS organizations, representing a diverse group of public and private EMS agencies that responded to over 3.3 million emergencies and transported over 2.78 million patients in America.
A complete copy of IAEMSC President Tan’s testimony before the House Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications Subcommittee is available at the IAEMSC web site located at www.iaemsc.org.
