Is the U.S. prepared for a nuclear emergency?

ProPublica: U.S. Health Care System Unprepared for Major Nuclear Emergency
A blunt assessment circulating among American officials says "Current capabilities can only handle a few radiation injuries at any one time." That assessment [was] prepared by the Department of Homeland Security in 2010 ... A report prepared last year by the Council on State and Territorial Epidemiologists was equally pessimistic ... it concluded that "In almost every measure of public health capacity and capability, the public health system remains poorly prepared to adequately respond to a major radiation emergency incident." President Obama's proposed budget would cut funding for a federal hospital preparedness program by about 10 percent (Fink, 4/7).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.