The US government has announced increased funding to help its state food laboratories deal with possible terrorist attacks directly or indirectly involving food poisoning.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control are expanding the National Laboratory Response Network and the Food Emergency Response Network. In this way, Washington hopes to increase its effectiveness and efficiency in testing meat and other food specimens to help public health officials deal with potential incidents of biological or chemical terrorism.
The Department of Health and Human Services, for the past three years, has been building a counter-terrorism infrastructure in state, local, and territorial health departments. Emphasis has been primarily focused on epidemiological and laboratory programmes.
