Archive
We archive the Biosecurity News Today items from the previous five days. All links were accessed and functioning on the day each newsletter was published.
February 2, 2012
Vaccine Development: Man vs MRSA (Nature: News Feature) Over the years, Robert Daum has learned to respect his adversary. In 1995, he and his co-workers at the University of Chicago children's hospital in Illinois were investigating infections that had affected two dozen children in their emergency department. Go to article
The Perpetual Challenge of Infectious Diseases (NEJM) Among the many challenges to health, infectious diseases stand out for their ability to have a profound impact on the human species. Great pandemics and local epidemics alike have influenced the course of wars, determined the fates of nations and empires, and affected the progress of civilization, making infections compelling actors in the drama of human history. Go to article
"Restaurant A" Revealed to Be Taco Bell (Food Safety News) On Wednesday, Food Safety News editor Dan Flynn broke news of the identity of "Restaurant Chain A" as Taco Bell in the 10-state outbreak of Salmonella enteritidis that sickened at least 68 individuals in October and November 2011. Go to article
Improving Childhood Vaccination Rates (NEJM: Perspective) Recently, the mother of a young child confessed to me that she didn't know any parents who were following the recommended immunization schedule for their children. Go to article
Opportunity in Austerity — A Common Agenda for Medicine and Public Health (NEJM: Perspective) Faced with the growing pressure to reduce the federal budget deficit, government leaders have increasingly turned their attention to reducing health expenditures. Go to article
Are We Sure our Drugs Are Safe? (CNN Opinion) When Americans pick up their prescriptions from the pharmacy or reach for a prescription bottle from their medicine cabinet, they probably don't think much about where the drugs were made or whether they are safe. Go to article
Going Viral (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) We've been lucky. The avian influenza (H5N1) virus that first emerged in Hong Kong in 1997 -- which killed six and caused 18 serious illnesses -- has not acquired the ability to spread easily from person to person. Go to article
Global Health Hits Crisis Point (Nature: Column) Last week, Michel Kazatchkine tendered his resignation as executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Regardless of whether you've heard of the French AIDS scientist, or even of the fund, you should keep reading. Go to article
Nuclear Accidents Pose Little Risk to Health, NRC Says (Reuters/FOX News) The risk to public health from a severe nuclear power plant accident in the United States is "very small" because reactor operators should have time to prevent core damage and reduce the release of radioactive materials, U.S. nuclear regulators said in a study on Wednesday. Go to article
No Big Fukushima Health Impact Seen: U.N. Body Chairman (Reuters) The health impact of last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan appears relatively small thanks partly to prompt evacuations, the chairman of a U.N. scientific body investigating the effects of radiation said on Tuesday. Go to article
U.S. State Science Standards Are ‘Mediocre to Awful’ (Scientific American: Blogs) A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute paints a grim picture of state science standards across the United States. But it also reveals some intriguing details about exactly what’s going wrong with the way many American students are learning science. Go to article
February 1, 2012
Pakistan Says Package Containing Anthrax Sent to Prime Minister’s Office in October (Washington Post with Foreign Policy) A university professor allegedly sent a packet containing anthrax to the Pakistani prime minister’s office in October, his spokesman said Wednesday, raising new security concerns in a country battling Islamist extremists. Go to article
With Memories of the 2009 Pandemic, Mexico Braces for Flu Season (Los Angeles Times) Mexican authorities report a fresh outbreak of the swine flu that killed hundreds and virtually paralyzed this sprawling capital in 2009. Go to article
Report on the Domestic Natural Disaster Health Workforce (National Center for Disaster Medicine & Public Health) The National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health (NCDMPH) prepared this report to describe selected aspects of the health professions workforce who would respond to a catastrophic domestic natural disaster. Go to article
Healthcare Preparedness Capabilities: National Guidance for Healthcare System Preparedness (ASPR) A wide ranging and diverse group of stakeholders were engaged in developing, revising, and aligning the eight (8) Healthcare Preparedness Capabilities. Go to article
NSABB: Studies Show How H5N1 Can Jump Natural Barrier (CIDRAP News) The core of a US biosecurity advisory board's concern about two controversial, as-yet-unpublished studies on H5N1 viruses is that the studies have shown how to remove the apparent natural barrier that keeps the viruses from spreading efficiently in mammals, members of the board said in statements published today. Go to article
Chad: Why Polio Is So Hard to Eliminate (IRIN) Poor-quality emergency immunization campaigns and low routine polio immunization coverage are helping the polio virus to spread in Chad, with 132 cases reported in 2011 - five times the number in 2010. Go to article
Iran, Perceiving Threat from West, Willing to Attack on U.S. Soil, U.S. Intelligence Report Finds (Washington Post with Foreign Policy) An assessment by U.S. spy agencies concludes that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States, highlighting new risks as the Obama administration escalates pressure on Tehran to halt its alleged pursuit of an atomic bomb. Go to article
5 U.S. Urban Counties Lead 'Terror Hot Spots' List, but Rural Areas Not Exempt (e! Science News) Nearly a third of all terrorist attacks from 1970 to 2008 occurred in just five metropolitan U.S. counties, but events continue to occur in rural areas, spurred on by domestic actors, according to a report recently published by researchers in the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Center of Excellence based at the University of Maryland. Go to article
Quakes and U.S. Reactors: An Analytic Tool (New York Times) With the release of a computer model of all known geologic faults east of Denver, nearly all of the nuclear power plants in the United States are about to embark on a broad re-evaluation of their vulnerability to earthquakes. Go to article
January 31, 2012
Policy: Adaptations of Avian Flu Virus Are a Cause for Concern (Nature: Comment) Members of the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity explain its recommendations on the communication of experimental work on H5N1 influenza. Go to article
Governor: Bioscience Authority Controversy Won't Affect NBAF (KCUR) An audit released recently alleges misdeeds by former Kansas Bioscience Authority head Tom Thornton. The KBA is one of the groups that worked to help Kansas land the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) project. But Gov. Sam Brownback does not believe criticism of the KBA will endanger the lab. Go to article
Anthrax Probe: Justice Department Arguing Against Itself (Washington Post/Seattle Times) Documents filed by federal lawyers in a Florida lawsuit appeared to contradict the government in its case against accused anthrax killer Bruce Ivins. Go to article
The Curse of the White Powder (Slate) No matter how benign it may be physically, a white powder packed into a letter or package has become in the post-9/11 world what you might call an interactive weapon: an ordinary substance transformed by fear into an agent of psychological warfare. In the decade following the 2001 anthrax attacks, white-powder hoaxes have proliferated into an epidemic in the United States, perpetrated in most instances to make a statement or exact revenge. Go to article
Asim Kausar Jailed over Ricin Recipe and Bomb-making Instructions (The Guardian/Press Association) A man who kept a recipe for a deadly poison and documents about how to make bombs has been jailed for two years and three months. Asim Kausar, 25, from Bolton, Greater Manchester, kept the information on a computer memory stick that contained details about the toxin ricin, assassination and torture techniques and instructions for making improvised explosive devices. Go to article
Joint Effort Announced Against Tropical Diseases (New York Times) Thirteen drug companies, the governments of the United States, Britain and the United Arab Emirates, the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lions Club and other smaller charitable organizations on Monday announced a joint effort to tackle 10 neglected tropical diseases in a coordinated fashion. Go to article
January 30, 2012
More Swine Flu Screening as Cases Increase in Mexico (Fox News Latino) Bringing back memories from three years ago, when the swine flu closed Mexico City and caused an international scare, the media is now warning of an alarming increase in cases of the flu virus, while the government insists there is no cause for alarm. Go to article
Prepositioning Antibiotics for Anthrax (IOM) Rapid access to antibiotics can prevent people who are exposed to aerosolized Bacillus anthracis from developing anthrax; once symptoms of anthrax emerge, the disease progresses rapidly and can prove fatal. Go to article
Big Pharma Donates Drugs for Neglected Diseases (Reuters) The world's major pharmaceutical companies joined forces with governments and leading global health organizations Monday to donate drugs and scientific know-how to help control or wipe out 10 neglected tropical diseases by 2020. Go to article
Fear-resistance: How Worried Should We Be About "Totally Drug-resistant" Tuberculosis? (Scientific American) A few weeks ago a clinic in Mumbai claimed to have identified a dozen patients with a strain of tuberculosis (TB) resistant to all known treatments. TB is a highly contagious lung infection that kills about 1.5 million people each year worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), so the development of a totally untreatable form of the disease would be cause for alarm. Go to article
TDR-TB: The Indian Government Denies It (Wired: Superbug) An update to the news two weeks ago of totally drug-resistant tuberculosis, TDR-TB, being identified in India (and earlier in Italy and Iran): The Indian government has announced that it doesn’t exist, and is putting pressure on the physicians who identified it to say they made a mistake. Go to article
Transforming Health Care: The Role of Health IT (Bipartisan Policy Center) Health information technology (IT) plays a critical role in supporting new models of care and payment that are designed to achieve health care’s triple aim: improve health, improve the experience of care for patients and families, and reduce the cost of care. Despite the introduction of IT to nearly every other aspect of modern life, the U.S. health care system remains largely paper-based. Go to article
UN Panel Aims for 'A Future Worth Choosing' (BBC) Growing inequality, environmental decline and "teetering" economies mean the world must change the way it does business, a UN report concludes. Health and education must improve, it says. Subsidies on fossil fuels should end, and governments must look beyond the standard economic indicator of GDP. Go to article
UN Nuclear Inspection Gets Under Way in Iran (AP/Yahoo! News) Iran's foreign minister expressed optimism Sunday that a visit by U.N. inspectors to Iran's nuclear facilities would produce an understanding, despite world concerns that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Go to article
Experts Cast Doubt on Japan Nuclear Power Plant Stress Tests (Christian Science Monitor) Advisers to Japan's nuclear safety agency have condemned stress tests being conducted at nuclear power plants around the country as the government seeks international support for the early resumption of dozens of idle reactors. Go to article
Scientists Consider, ‘If Fukushima Happened in South Jersey ...’ (Press of Atlantic City) Drinking water for nearly 3.3 million New Jersey residents could be at contamination risk from a radiation leak at a nearby nuclear power plant, according to a report released this week by two advocacy groups. Go to article
January 27, 2012
Prion Diseases Hide Out in the Spleen (Nature) Prion diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD) are able to jump species much more easily than previously thought. A study published in Science [yesterday] shows that in mice, prions introduced from other species can replicate in the spleen without necessarily affecting the brain. Go to article
Kan. Ag Secretary Blasts KBA Board of Directors (AP/Canadian Business) A key member of Gov. Sam Brownback's administration said Thursday that the Kansas Bioscience Authority's board of directors shared some of the blame for problems identified in a forensic audit of the agency, including questions about the spending decisions of its former CEO. Go to article
Tauscher Stepping Down as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control (Foreign Policy) Following her successful battle with esophageal cancer, Ellen Tauscher is taking a step back and handing over several of her responsibilities as the State Department's top arms control official, State Department officials told The Cable [on Wednesday]. Go to article
Egypt: Anti-bird Flu Campaign Planned (IRIN) A nationwide campaign to stop the spread of H5N1 avian influenza in Egypt is to be launched by the government in a few weeks, say officials, but details are still sketchy. Go to article
Engineered H5N1: A Rare Time for Restraint in Science (Annals of Internal Medicine: Ideas and Opinions) Two scientific teams have recently engineered the H5N1 virus to make it readily transmissible between ferrets. Given that ferrets are considered the most reliable animal surrogate for human influenza infection, the newly engineered H5N1 strain is probably transmissible between humans as well. Go to article
Study Finds Virus to Be Fast Learner on Infecting (New York Times) Viruses regularly evolve new ways of making people sick, but scientists usually do not become aware of these new strategies until years or centuries after they have evolved. In a new study published on Thursday in the journal Science, however, a team of scientists at Michigan State University describes how viruses evolved a new way of infecting cells in little more than two weeks. Go to article
Gates Donates $750 Million to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (CNN) The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will inject $750 million into the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates announced Thursday at the World Economic Forum. Go to article
Report: Electronic Health Records Still Need Work (AP/Boston.com) America may be a technology-driven nation, but the health care system's conversion from paper to computerized records needs lots of work to get the bugs out, according to experts who spent months studying the issue. Go to article
Pakistani Lawmakers Delay Biological Weapons Pact Bill (AP/Boston.com) Pakistani lawmakers on Wednesday postponed consideration of a bill aimed at ensuring the nation meets its obligations as a member of the Biological Weapons Convention over questions about specific elements of the proposal, Pakistan Today reported. Go to article
Iran Is Ready to Return to Nuclear Talks (AP/TIME) Iran is ready to revive talks with the U.S. and other world powers, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday, but suggested that Tehran's foes will have to make compromises to prevent negotiations from again collapsing in stalemate. Go to article
