National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) maintains a select Laboratory Response Team that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to respond to a chemical terrorism event anywhere in the country. This team supports the collection of clinical samples in hospitals and trauma centers to help ensure that the proper testing can be done to assess people's exposure to chemical agents. CDC's Environmental Health Laboratory itself is equipped to handle analyses of samples collected after an event of even major scope.
- CDC's Environmental Health Laboratory assists public health laboratories in states, territories, cities, and counties with expanding their chemical laboratory capacity to prepare and respond to chemical terrorism incidents or other emergencies involving chemicals. With CDC funding, 62 partners-50 states, eight territories, three cities, and one county-will be able to do their part in responding to chemical terrorism. This funding covers instrument and equipment purchases, training at CDC's Environmental Health Laboratory and by instrument manufacturers at partner sites, technology transfer, and proficiency testing for methods to measure chemical agents.
CDC's Environmental Health Laboratory has established these three levels of capacity for public health laboratories:
- Level III laboratories collect and ship human samples.
- Level II laboratories have the capabilities of Level III laboratories and can analyze samples for evidence of industrial chemicals and selected chemical agents.
- Level I laboratories have Level II and Level III laboratory responsibilities and can analyze human samples for chemical agents that require a higher level of expertise to analyze
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