Chemical agents detection equipment

Specific medications and items of equipment to treat chemical casualties will be carried by units operating in an area of chemical threat. When collective protection systems are not available, casualties will be taken upwind 100 m or more to permit treatment to occur in a shirtsleeve environment. Chemical agent detection equipment, such as the chemical agent monitor (CAM), should be available to determine (a) if agent vapors have been absorbed on surfaces of the casualty s clothing or equipment before entering a treatment area, and (b) if decontamination procedures have been properly accomplished. 

Medical personnel must rely on accurate and timely information provided by the earliest responders on the scene. If medical teams are expected to be the earliest responders to the scene of a mass casualty incident involving chemical agents, then they should be provided with reliable detection equipment as well as training on the use of the equipment. There should be continued support for the Public Health Service efforts to equip Metropolitan Medical Strike Teams with effective and currently available chemical agent detection equipment. These detectors are reliable, relatively inexpensive, and provide for the detection of all classical chemical agents that may be utilized in a domestic terrorist incident. Furthermore, efficient and cost-effective portable hand-held CWA detectors employing photo ionization detectors, surface acoustic wave microsensors, or ion mobility spectrometry should be readily available to all Hazmat units expected to respond to a potential CWA incident. 

The U.S. Department of Justice also has two very necessary reports for first responder organizations and hazardous materials response teams. The first such report is entitled An Introduction to Biological Agent Detection Equipment for Emergency First Responders the second such report is entitled Guide for the Selection of Chemical and Biological Detection Equipment for Emergency First Responders. Both are available online at http //www.ojp. usdoj.gov. 

In addition, significant advances have been made in the state-of-the-art" for chemical agent detection and monitoring equipment, analytical procedures, and protective clothing. 

FIGURE 53.6. Performance of on-site chemical warfare agent detection equipment. 

The RRS provides the majority of the equipment used for this process and is part of the CHATS. The typical process flow for chemical agent detection systems is shown at Figure D-3. 

Fig. 16-24. M8 Chemical Agent Detection Paper. A drop of mustard (H) simulant from the vial has turned the paper red. Reprinted from Brletich NR, Waters MJ, Bowen GW, Tracy MF. Worldwide Chemical Detection Equipment Handbook. Edgewood, Md Chemical Warfare/Chemical and Biological Defense Information Analysis Center October 1995 407. Photograph Courtesy of US Army Edgewood Research, Development, and Engineering Center, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

When addressing the requirement for chemical agent detection at the scene of a terrorist incident, it is important to consider who really has the responsibility for detection operations. Is it the police, the fire department, the Hazmat team, or the EMS units If the responsibility falls on medical assets, how will the use of detection equipment increase the efficiency of the health care team in preserving life and preventing further injury Furthermore, will the absence of more sensitive equipment somehow inhibit their performance These are important questions that must be addressed by policymakers and incident response planners. 

A wide variety of commercial equipment is available for detection of hazardous chemicals, including a number of chemical warfare agents. For example, ion mobility spectroscopy is used to detect nerve, blister, and blood agents. The Chemical Agent Monitor is a portable, hand-held point detection instrument that uses ion mobility spectrometry to monitor nerve or blister agent vapors. However, minimum detection limits are approximately 100 times the acceptable exposure limit for nerve agents, and approximately 50 times the acceptable exposure limit for blister agents. 

Anon, "Chemical Filling and Handling Equipment , TM 3 255(1955 ) 41)A.Kondritzer, US Armed Forces MedJ 7, 791-6(1956) CA 50, 10308(1956)(Chemiscry, detection and decontamination of nerve gases) 42)Anon, "Military Chemistry and Chemical Agents ,... 

It is rather difficult to state with confidence whether five days is long or not but, as one arms control expert has said, [wjhile the delay between the challenge and the team s entry into the site - a total of some 120 hours - may seem long, chemical weapons production is very difficult to clean up. Modern chemical detection equipment would be able to detect traces of chemical agents in reaction vessels where they had been produced, for example, even after extensive cleaning. If this is the case -and the view has been shared by other experts the point would then be whether the inspection team could reach the reaction vessels in question. In other words, it would become important how intrusive the access could be. 

Preparedness planning from the national to the local level for a potentially catastrophic event has been described. Of particular importance, however, is the need to ensure the safety of those individuals who must be called on to provide assistance to casualties and communities should toxic chemical agents be released. In this regard, these individuals must have accurate and rapid detection equipment, tested and effective physical protection, and adequate facilities and medical products to provide the care to victims of a mass casualty incident. Much has been done to address all of these areas and it is hoped that when such an event occurs, the time and resources applied to this problem payoff. 

Civilian specialized teams that are prepared for working in chemically contaminated focal points are usually provided with different types of chemical detectors and monitoring kits, which are only capable to point to the presence or absence of the suspected chemical substance or a class of chemical. The most-used detectors are designed for detection of organophosphate pesticides, chlorine and cyanide, but the detectors against classical CW agents are usually not available to civilian chemists. Because, currently, the anti-terrorist activities have spiralled upwards, much of todays s military technology has been developed into commercially available equipment, however, the cost of detection equipment items... 

In the military environment, chemical detectors are often deployed to confirm that decontamination has been completed before casualties are passed via an air-lock into a Collective Protection Environment . The reason for this is obvious staff in the Collective Protection Environment do not wear personal protective equipment (PPE) and must be protected by rigorous maintenance of an uncontaminated environment. The Chemical Agent Monitor (CAM) is particularly suited for detecting vapour given off by unremoved areas of liquid contamination. However, proper monitoring of patients takes several minutes and in a mass-casualty or mass-decontamination setting this may not be feasible. Reliance must, therefore, be placed on the adequacy of the decontamination process itself. 

If chemical agent detector dogs are demonstrated to be able to reliably detect CWM at very low concentrations, this capability could be applied to assessing large CWM burial sites. For example, it is to be expected that some of the sites, or portions of some of the sites, are free of chemical agent because no CWM was buried in that section of the burial or only empty CWM containers were buried there.8 If chemical detector dogs could reliably confirm the absence of CWM, the excavation and removal of objects from portions of the burial pits so identified could possibly be carried out with reduced personal protective equipment and without other precautions normally taken for CWM excavation (negative pressure enclosures, for example). 

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