Attorneys

• Judith A. Buckalew

Related Practices

• Education
• Healthcare Policy
• Public Health & The Environment
• Public Policy & Government Relations
• Tax Exempt Organizations
• Healthcare
• Appropriations

PPSV helps Yale New Haven Health System Set Up Disaster and Bioterrorism Response Unit

Judith A. Buckalew and the public policy and government relations team at Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville PC recently helped its client the Yale New Haven Health System Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response secure $2 million in funding from the Pentagon to establish a National Center for Integrated Civilian-Military Medical Response and Homeland Security. The Yale New Haven Health System is the first and only hospital system in the United States to be recognized by the Centers for Disease Control as a Center for Emergency Preparedness, a designation obtained with the assistance of Ms. Buckalew.

The new center will be developed in collaboration with the United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM ) and will devise ways for military and civilian doctors and nurses to work together during a disaster, pandemic or terrorist attack and to develop uniform organization and training of  military and civilian emergency responders.   

Abram Katz discussed the initiative in the October 18 issue of the New Haven Register Science Editor in Devise an Orderly Disaster Response.  He interviewed Christopher Cannon, Director of the Yale New Haven Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response, who stated:     “The expectation is that military medical people will work with civilians, but they don't understand each other. We have to determine how to train them to work together…The military would be extremely useful in absorbing the expected surge in patients after a catastrophe. The armed forces also have valuable expertise in decontamination, personal protection against chemical and other hazards, and treating battlefield trauma.”

Ms. Buckalew is the firm's Director of Public Policy and Legislation and focuses her practice on the federal legislative and regulatory process as well as appropriations matters. She is one of the nation's leading experts in the area of counterterrorism related to the use of biologic agents and the role of public health officials in responding to terrorist threats. She organized and conducted the first Congressional hearing on the Nation's preparedness for epidemics and bioterrorism before the Senate Appropriations Committee. She holds a Masters from the UCLA School of Public Health and is a registered nurse and served as an intelligence officer in the US Naval Reserve.

Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville is a Washington, DC-based law firm that focuses on healthcare, education and the law of tax-exempt organizations.  For more information, please contact Judi Buckalew at 202-466-6550 or e-mail judi.buckalew@ppsv.com.