You will be glad they are there if we have a major attack...

I begged him to let me continue, said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims. People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the tarmac (at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) where scores of nonresponsive patients lay on stretchers. Two patients died in front of me.

I showed him (the U.S. Coast Guard official in charge) my medical credentials. I had tried to get through to FEMA for 12 hours the day before and finally gave up. I asked him to let me stay until I was replaced by another doctor, but he refused. He said he was afraid of being sued. I informed him about the Good Samaritan laws and asked him if he was willing to let people die so the government wouldn't be sued, but he would not back down. I had to leave.

FEMA issued a formal response to Perlmutter's story, acknowledging that the agency does not use voluntary physicians.

We have a cadre of physicians of our own, FEMA spokesman Kim Pease said Thursday. They are the National Disaster Medical Team. ... The voluntary doctor was not a credentialed FEMA physician and, thus, was subject to law enforcement rules in a disaster area.

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Perlmutter, Dr. Clark Gerhart and medical student Alison Torrens flew into Baton Rouge on a private jet loaned by a Pennsylvania businessman several days after Katrina hit. They brought medicine and supplies with them. They stayed the first night in Baton Rouge and persuaded an Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot to fly them into New Orleans the next day.

I was going to make it happen, the orthopedic surgeon said. I was at Ground Zero too, and I had to lie to get in there.

At the triage area in the New Orleans airport, Perlmutter was successful in getting FEMA to accept the insulin and morphine he had brought. The pharmacist told us they were completely out of insulin and our donation would save numerous lives. Still, I felt we were the most-valuable resource, and we were sent away.

Gerhart said the scene they confronted at the airport was one of hundreds of people lying on the ground, many soaked in their own urine and feces, some coding (dying) before our eyes. FEMA workers initially seemed glad for help and asked Gerhart to work inside the terminal and Perlmutter to work out on the tarmac. They were told only a single obstetrician had been on call at the site for the past 24 hours.

Then, the Coast Guard official informed the group that he could not credential them or guarantee tort coverage and that they should return to Baton Rouge. That shocked me, that those would be his concerns in a time of emergency, Gerhart said.

Transported back to Baton Rouge, Perlmutter's frustrated group went to state health officials who finally got them certified -- a simple process that took only a few seconds.

I found numerous other doctors in Baton Rouge waiting to be assigned and others who were sent away, and there was no shortage of need, he said.

Perlmutter spent some time at the Department of Health and Hospital's operational center at Jimmy Swaggart Ministries before moving to the makeshift Kmart Hospital doctors established at an abandoned store to care for patients. After organizing an orthopedics room and setting up ventilators there, Perlmutter went back to the Swaggart Center and then to the LSU Pete Maravich Assembly Center's field hospital to care for patients being flown in from the New Orleans area.

We saw elderly patients who had been off their medicine for days, diabetics without insulin going into shock, uncontrolled hypertension, patients with psychosis and other mental disorders, lots of diarrhea, dehydration and things you would expect. I slept on a patient cot there every night until I came home.

Gerhart said he felt the experience overall was successful and rewarding, although frustrating at times. You don't expect catastrophes to be well organized. A lot of people, both private citizens and government officials, were working very hard.

Perlmutter did not return home empty-handed. He brought a family of four evacuees back with him and is still working with Baton Rouge volunteer Hollis Barry to facilitate the relocation of additional hurricane victims to Pennsylvania.

He also returned with a sense of outrage. I have been trying to call Sen. Arlen Specter (of Pennsylvania) to let him know of our experience.

I have been going to Ecuador and Mexico (on medical missions) for 14 years. I was at ground zero. I've seen hundreds of people die. This was different because we knew the hurricane was coming. FEMA showed up late and then rejected help for the sake of organization. They put form before function, and people died.

Both FEMA and the Coast Guard operate under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has been widely criticized for its disjointed, slow response to the devastation caused by Katrina. Federal officials are urging medical personnel who want to volunteer to help with disaster relief to contact the Medical Reserve Corps or the American Red Cross for registration, training and organization.

every single poster on this board.  You are rude, crude, obnoxious, insulting and totally intolerant.  I realize these are considered compliments in your narrow-minded circles, but most reasonable Americans don't care for people who behave as you insist on behaving.

How's it feel to be treated the way you treat others?

Nuff said.

consider you a threat.  Unfortunately, I just find your repetitive posts mind-numbingly feeble.  You look up a word on Google like socialist, read the two-line definition and then post it over and over and over.  You have no depth of knowledge on any of the subjects discussed here and so your posts are absolutely worthless.  It is like having to tolerate a homely little first-grader at a book club discussing Shakesphere.  You think you are cute and smart, but the adults loathe you.

You're disturbed because I proved (yet again) that she's a liar, but you're not disturbed that she maliciously attacks each and every single poster who dares to even THINK about disagreeing with her?

Tells me pretty much all I need to know about you. 

If you like liars and bullies, go back to the Conservative boad.

This president has ignored every single thing ever suggested to him, even as it regards terrorism.  I wonder what the terrorists will be planning for us in the future and how much information and knowledge they've learned from this about our weak spots.  They must see American frustration with Bush's incompetence, and they must really be enjoying that.  This is AMERICA.  We're supposed to have our act together.

Here we go again - Rove's tactic of personal attacks on those who bring forth damaging information. Media matters states inaccuracies of the press on both sides.  They back their statements up with proof and facts.  You can argue they are "left" "right" "middle" or "ovoid" but they still present information and back it up with verifiable facts.

Sarah Palin for her lack of experience just kill me here.  You discredit all the experience she has by saying that being governor means nothing when previous presidents were governors prior to their presidency.  She has run a state and has done a successful job at it and yet you Obama supports refuse to see that.  You feel more compelled to discuss her clothes or how she should stay home with the kids instead of running for office.  Which is a horribly sexist thing to say. 

You refuse to see anything positive she has done in her career and cry that she lacks experience and yet you are so blind to see that Barrack Obama has very little experience himself.  He has climbed the ladder through the help of various radicals and crooks.  Obama has all these associations with radicals and racists people and you see nothing wrong with that?  He has requested more spending for earmarks and pork in 4 years than John McCain has during his whole career.  Obama wants to spend more of OUR money. 

Government has really messed things up.  Why do we want bigger government when government has already failed us?  Yet here we are putting our trust in a man who has questionable associations just because he promises change.....change that he can't possibly deliver on and if he does......there goes the country.  He wants more government spending, higher taxes, and bigger government. 

I'm sorry but I want smaller government, less government spending, and don't raise taxes during a recession.

biological attack.  Or a flu pandemic.  Lots of scenarios available for his use. 

I share your fears 100%.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/11/20/pentagon-cyber-siege-unprecedented-attack/

The Pentagon has suffered from a cyber attack so alarming that it has taken the unprecedented step of banning the use of external hardware devices, such as flash drives and DVD's, FOX News has learned.

The attack came in the form of a global virus or worm that is spreading rapidly throughout a number of military networks.

"We have detected a global virus for which there has been alerts, and we have seen some of this on our networks," a Pentagon official told FOX News. "We are now taking steps to mitigate the virus."

The official could not reveal the source of the attack because that information remains classified.

"Daily there are millions of scans of the GIG, but for security reasons we don't discuss the number of actual intrusions or attempts, or discuss specific measures commanders in the field may be taking to protect and defend our networks," the department said in an official statement. 

Military computers are often referred to as part of the Global Information Grid, or GIG, a system composed of 17 million computers, many of which house classified or sensitive information.

FOX News obtained a copy of one memo sent out last week to an Army division within the Pentagon warning of the cyber attack.

"Due to the presence of commercial malware, CDR USSTRATCOM has banned the use of removable media (thumb drives, CDRs/DVDRs, floppy disks) on all DoD networks and computers effective immediately."