Emergency Vehicle and Roadway Operations Safety
Fighting fires and responding to medical emergencies is already fraught with peril—first responders don’t need to add fiery auto accidents to list of things that can kill them. That’s why the U.S. Fire Administration has a bevy of initiatives meant to increase safety as emergency personnel rush from incident to incident. The site highlights studies, educational programs and best practices for firefighters, police, and emergency medical services.
Integrating Disaster Recovery: What Should Long-Term Disaster Recovery Look Like?
Long-term disaster recovery must reach into every nook and cranny of a community to restore and rebuild the lives of its members. How can such a detailed effort be organized? These are the topics tackled at the National Academies 34th Disasters Roundtable Workshop last month. Experts weighed in on issues of gauging progress, integrating recovery strategies, helping state, local, and national agencies collaborate, and much more. View the entire webcast or just the pieces you want to see on the page linked above.
North American Plan for Animal and Pandemic Influenza
Pandemics, by definition, don’t recognize national borders. Now neither does a plan to fight them in North America. Leaders of Canada, the United States, and Mexico agreed this month to the North American Plan for Animal and Pandemic Influenza, an interconnected system for outbreak surveillance and early warning and a framework for shared preparedness and response. Procedures for vaccine sharing during a pandemic are also outlined.
Retraction Watch
Speaking of pandemics, much of what we accept to be true about viruses and how to treat them comes from research published in a handful of respected scientific and medical journals. But did you know that retractions from such journals are at an all time high? Retraction Watch is the effort of two medical reporters to put these reversals into context and in one place. The authors are also interested in bumping up their coverage of other types of science journal retractions, so you can roll up your sleeves and help out, as well.
DeadSocial
Just in case disaster preparedness doesn’t work out for you, you might want to have a DeadSocial account waiting in the wings. DeadSocial is like Facebook for dead people—set calendar events (mourn me, 7:00-3:30?), schedule messages, and upload pictures that will haunt your friends and family for all time. Now that social media truly is forever, you can hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.