Ethical Resource Distribution after Biological, Chemical, or Radiological Terrorism

In situations with limited medical resources, be they personnel, equipment, or time (and it always boils down to a lack of time), clinicians use “triage” to determine which patients receive treatment. What type of treatment a patient receives depends on the triage “lottery” rules in place. Although these rules for sorting patients and distributing resources are standardized for most situations, they must be somewhat altered after overwhelming, nonstandard (i.e., biological, chemical, and radiological) disasters.