B -- GUIDES FOR THE SELECTION OF COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL EQUIPMENT FOR EMERGENCY FIRST RESPONDERS

NEW AND UPDATED CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE EQUIPMENT INFORMATION NEEDED - GUIDES FOR THE SELECTION OF COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL EQUIPMENT FOR EMERGENCY FIRST RESPONDERS DUE 10/10/02 POC Dr. Al Fatah, Office of Law Enforcement Standards, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), E-MAIL: POC, [email protected]. The heightened national concern that terrorists will employ chemical agents, toxic industrial materials (TIMs), and/or biological agents against domestic targets has prompted State and local first responders to enhance their response capabilities. In recognizing the needs of State and local emergency first responders, the Department of Justice has funded a program responsible for the development of chemical and biological defense equipment guides. The guides focus on chemical and biological equipment in areas of detection, personal protection, decontamination, and communication. Initial versions of these guides were recently issued by the National Institute of Justice. To ensure that these guides remain a valuable tool to State and local first responders, they must be periodically updated. Based upon this need, this notice was prepared as the initial step necessary to begin these updates. Electronic read-only versions of each guide are located at http://virlib.ncjrs.org/LawEnforcement.asp. Specific areas of interest include identification of equipment items that have been recently developed and/or upgraded since the initiation of the original guides, using the same set of stated criteria as used for the original guides. Sources are asked to contact by e-mail the NIST POC for any potential questions, as well as their responses. The deadline for response to this notice is 30 days from the date of this announcement.