CBRN

Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents have risen in importance in the minds of emergency physicians since September 11th 2001. In this issue of the EMJ a number of authors have contributed papers that add to our understanding of both the problems such incidents present to us, and the responses we should put in place to cope with the consequences.

Crawford and colleagues have approached the problem of chemical incident response using a Delphi technique in an attempt to poll and collate expert opinion in an area of little primary research. They have used a wide group of stakeholders to reach consensus on the basics of prehospital and hospital responsibilities and actions and report their findings in the first of a pair of papers. …