- NEW YORK - When Pope John Paul II and President Clinton converged on
St. Louis this week, the U.S. Secret Service dispatched the usual high-level
protective teams to guard against terrorism or assassination attempts.
But now, U.S. officials tell NBC News that the security details for such
high-profile events have a new component in tune with more dangerous times:
a cache of chemical and germ warfare antidotes that travels around the
country as needed.
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- The Pope in America
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- A pallet of shrink-wrapped pharmaceuticals
and intravenous equipment was shipped to St. Louis for Pope John Paul II's
visit this week and was stored near the Capitol during Clinton's State
of the Union address on Jan. 19, U.S. officials said.
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- The 'pharmaceutical cache,' the existence
of which has not been announced publicly, includes thousands of doses that
can be used to treat victims of chemical or biological attacks. Officials
stressed that the caches, controlled by the Veterans Administration, were
dispatched to St. Louis and other previous events purely as a precautionary
measure and not because of any intelligence indicating an attack was imminent
or planned.
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- NEW AREA OF CONCERN
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- Still, the existence of the cache indicates
the new priority being given to countering the use of chemical or biological
agents since the attack on the Tokyo subway system in March 1995. The sarin
gas attack by the Aum Shinri Kyo cult killed 13 people.
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- The pharmaceuticals are mainly antidotes
like atrophine and tupan, better known as Valium, for exposure to chemical
weapons, and 'post-exposure' pharmaceuticals like penicillin and doxocycline,
for biological weapons.
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- The veterans agency also sends other
drugs to treat people who might suffer heart attacks or asthma attacks
that might result from a terrorist attack.
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- VOLUNTEER TEAMS
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- The drugs would be administered by a
U.S. Public Health Service team - called a national medical response team
- made up of doctors and nurses who volunteer for the job. The doctors
are trained mainly in responding to chemical weapons and the pharmaceuticals
are mainly directed toward countering chemical weapons, primarily because
symptoms of a biological attack likely would take hours to surface. Chemical
attack symptoms strike immediately.
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- PREVIOUS DEPLOYMENTS
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- There are 2,000 to 3,000 doses sent to
the location of each special event. A cache was sent to the Atlanta Olympics
in 1996, the G-8 summit in Denver and presidential inauguration in Washington
in 1997, the World Energy Congress in Houston in 1998 and the papal visit
this year. The president's State of the Union has been covered since 1997.
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- The pharmaceuticals are sent to a medical
facility, mostly VA hospitals, close to the special event. Sometimes, however,
they are stashed even closer. For example, at the State of Union address
this year, the cache was sent to the Hubert Humphrey building - the headquarters
for the Department of Health and Human Services - across the street from
the House chamber, where the president spoke.
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- There are four caches and they are stored
at four VA facilities: in Washington, Los Angeles, Denver and Winston-Salem,
NC. Originally, the caches were transported in government trucks, but recently
they have been sent via Federal Express. Fedex was more efficient, said
one official, because the government trucks were 'old and had problems
[meeting deadlines].'
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- The caches are signed for on both ends
by the Veterans Administration, said an official, and Fedex is informed
of their contents. __________
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- Robert Windrem is an NBC News investigative
producer based in New York.
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