- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Top aides to President George W. Bush on Saturday
looked at ways they might deal with a possible smallpox attack, a drill
that included reviewing some lessons learned from the response to Hurricane
Katrina.
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- Bush, who was not at the exercise, warned
in a speech in December 2002 that the potential use by militants of the
smallpox virus as a weapon was "one potential danger to America."
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- White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said
there is no evidence that a smallpox attack is imminent but the drill was
one in a series of exercises the administration is holding to look at preparedness
for potential public-health disasters.
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- Officials held a similar drill in December
on pandemic flu.
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- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff,
Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, and several other Cabinet secretaries
attended the drill. Bush was spending the weekend at his Camp David retreat
in Maryland.
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- Perino said the aim of Saturday's gathering
at the executive building near the White House was to look at federal,
state and local preparedness plans, "identify gaps in preparedness
and explore the lessons from Hurricane Katrina in a response that would
exceed capabilities at the state and local level."
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- The Bush administration's response to
the catastrophic Aug. 29 hurricane has been widely criticized.
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- Smallpox was once a feared disease caused
by a contagious and sometimes fatal virus. The World Health Organization
in 1979 declared that a program of global vaccinations had eradicated smallpox,
but it still exists in laboratories.
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