Add this to those billboards .........
SF To Get Extra Bio-Terror Funds
POSTED: 4:18 pm PDT May 24, 2004
WASHINGTON -- The federal government wants to redirect $27 million in federal bioterrorism preparedness money from states to cities -- sending extra funds to Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, officials said Monday.
Los Angeles would get an additional $2.67 million in 2004 under the Centers for Disease Control proposal, San Diego would get $1.22 million and San Francisco would get $940,000, according to a federal Department of Health and Human Services description of the program.
The $27 million that would be sent to 21 of the nation's largest cities is part of $55 million the CDC proposes to redirect from 2004 grants to states. The proposal will take effect unless Congress disapproves it within 10 days.
The money for cities is intended to help them develop the capacity to provide antibiotics to residents within 48 hours and integrate communications systems and emergency plans to accomplish that. The U.S. Postal Service would get $12 million from the $55 million to help the 21 cities develop plans to distribute antibiotics.
In addition, $11.9 million would go to improve surveillance information on emerging diseases, and $4 million would go to help the CDC expand its quarantine abilities.
The $55 million represents a fraction of more than $840 million expected to be sent to states in 2004 for bioterrorism preparedness, said CDC spokesman Von Roebuck.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a letter to members of Congress last week that he's concerned states are spending money too slowly, and that redirecting the funds would "accelerate state readiness and improve the public health infrastructure."
In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, officials in some of the nation's largest cities have complained about federal funding formulas that have divided significant portions of the money into equal pieces for distribution to all states---- so that less-populous states like Wyoming and Alaska have received more money per capita than California and New York.
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