General guidelines for medically screening mixed population groups potentially exposed to nerve or vesicant agents

A number of state and local planners have requested guidance on screening protocols and have expressed interest in sampling body fluids from exposed or potentially exposed individuals as a means of estimating agent dose. These guidelines have been developed to provide a clear statement that could be used by state and local emergency response personnel in the event of a nerve or vesicant agent incident resulting in off-post contamination; maximum protection from harm is the goal. The assumption is that any population group so exposed would be heterogeneous for age, gender, reproductive status, and state of health